


Steward

by PerseShow



Series: Trials of Peace [1]
Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Angst, Bajor, Bajoran Culture, Bajorans, Betrayal, Celestial Temple (Star Trek), Developing Friendships, Duty, Freedom, Gen, Great Link (Star Trek) - Freeform, Grief, Guilt, Loss, Love, Post-Canon, Prophets (Star Trek), Visions, failure - Freeform, post-WYLB
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-17
Updated: 2016-12-06
Packaged: 2018-08-23 08:40:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 30,159
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8321254
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PerseShow/pseuds/PerseShow
Summary: Kira Eeris, direct descendant of Kira Nerys, is expected to sacrifice free will and happiness to follow her destiny and become Steward of Bajor…but she has other plans.Part one of Trials of Peace—in which, 900 years after the Dominion War, demi-Prophet Benjamin Sisko calls upon Miro Dax, Kira Eeris, and Odo to stop the Romulan Empress Viresa in her quest to conquer the galaxy.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Queenix for knocking this story into shape. Thanks also to Tali for all the encouragement, and for being a fantastic beta in general. All mistakes are my own.

~2378~

* * *

The Link was as alluring a concept now as it had been when he’d first discovered it, on that fateful mission to the Gamma Quadrant with Nerys. He’d lost track of how much time he’d spent simply  _ being _ , now existing as a liquid, then as a gas, then as anything his now unlimited vocabulary could think of. It was fascinating how many forms he now knew how to mimic, how many years of history he could now recall, even before the lab. Time was meaningless, his existence based solely on the limits of his imagination. And never, even with Laas, had he felt so free.

But free or not, sometimes he found it comforting to take humanoid form at the edge of the Great Link and simply watch as his people lapped at the shore. From there, he could see the expanse of the red-orange sky, the slight undulations of the living ocean he could become a part of without so much as a thought, and the powdery red of the single island where he’d said goodbye to Nerys. Despite the fine, dust-like quality of the minerals that composed it, that island was still here, still standing, the spikes of rock still piled high, the ground still solid, having had no wind or water to tear at it. In these ways, the island was almost as peaceful as the Link. And it was comforting to return to the form that had once identified him in the Solid world. He still thought of that form as uniquely his. He never remained Solid for long, though. As a Solid, he once again gained a sense of time, and the weight of what he had lost pressed down on him. Never one to dwell, he returned almost immediately to the peace of the Great Link, where he would submerge himself in that living ocean and let his mind run free. It helped him forget about the past, helped him let go of the painful memories he carried.

Suddenly, his surroundings  _ shifted _ .

Odo’s head spun as the endless red-orange of his homeworld melted instantly into dull earth tones. One minute, he was standing on the very solid, very  _ real _ red dirt of his island, and the next, he found his boots sinking into wet soil. Brush that was somehow dry covered the ground. The sky was overcast and he could hear the sound of rain, but oddly, there was none to be seen. A cold wind blew past and he pulled his outermost cells more tightly together to resist the chill. He knew almost immediately that he hadn’t been here before. But how could he have been brought here? There was no one around to be seen. He tilted his head up, searching for some sign of the entity responsible, but all that greeted him were gloomy, gray clouds that hovered low over the land, shutting out the sun and the sky.

A possibility came to him as a tiny flash of a memory he had forgotten. The wormhole aliens. They were known for making Jem’Hadar disappear and for experimenting with corporeal beings. But that was impossible. He had watched the wormhole aliens die himself. There were no more Prophets. There was no more wormhole. Whoever was responsible for bringing him here wasn’t working from a godlike chair.

And besides…where was he? This certainly wasn’t his homeworld. It looked like no place he’d ever been to before. The gently rolling hills, the grasses and shrubs that quivered in the breeze, the slight chill of the air—none of it bore any resemblance to any place he remembered. But he had the strangest, most visceral sense that he  _ knew _ this place—or, at least, had once known it. He turned slowly, scanning the land in all directions. The wind whipped around his body, freezing him to the core despite his attempts to arrange his cells to better defend himself. The skirt of his Founder robes flapped against his legs and he slid into a more snugly fitting form, his old security uniform.

A strange calm swept over him, as if some outside force were asking him to take a deep breath. Odo closed his eyes. A chilly wind began to churn around him, roaring like a hurricane as it whipped around his head. His lungs filled with the icy air and he suddenly realized why this place felt so familiar. It wasn’t anything to do with the actual place. The rolling hills, overcast sky, and wet, sinking ground existed nowhere in his memory. It was the  _ feeling _ , more than anything else, that he recognized. It was his isolation and his battle against the cold that he remembered. The last time he’d felt so alone, so lost, had been years ago. It had been the time when he’d finally escaped the lab. That day he had bid his resentful farewell to Dr. Mora and had stepped out into the dark chill of the night, alone.

He hadn’t had a game plan then, nor any idea of where to go or how to move on. His only thought had been to leave. To escape that place of his nightmares. Just as he wanted to escape the forbidding chill now.

Bajor, he realized. This place was Bajor!

Impossible! He shook off the feeling. This couldn’t be Bajor. The terrain was all wrong. And even if he was somehow back on his old adopted home, this had to be the saddest-looking Bajor he’d ever seen. How could his memory have come up with a landscape so different from what he’d known before? Did his mind really hold Bajor in so negative, so dismal, a light? This couldn’t be real—that, he knew for sure. With the Prophets gone, there was no entity in the universe that could have actually transported him here. This was all in his head. But that left him with one nagging question. Why was he thinking of Bajor now? Why  _ now _ , after the Prophets were dead, the wormhole was gone, and there was no way he could  _ ever _ go back to his friends and resume his old life? Why did his memories insist on haunting him?

Off to his left, he spotted a cluster of huts that blended into the surrounding hills so well it would take a trained investigator to notice. Huts normally meant people. Even if he wasn’t sure what he was doing here or how this was even possible, finding people was probably the best place to start. He set off through the hills, tempted to shape shift into an Arbazan vulture, but guessing it was probably best to trudge along in his humanoid form for the time being.

Movement caught the corner of Odo’s eye. He swiveled his head towards it and saw the oddest sight he could have possibly imagined. A Bajoran woman, perhaps twenty, was running—no,  _ racing _ —towards him, her breathing rapid, her expression one of alarm, her single arm flailing in all directions. Her hair was sopping wet, for a thundercloud had burst right over her head, and her own personal torrent of rain was crashing down around her as a spotlight follows a performer.

“ _ Odo! _ ” she cried as she sprang toward him. “ _ Odo! _ ”

He stood stock-still, not sure what to make of this new development. As far as he was aware, thunderclouds didn’t go around chasing Bajoran girls.

“ _ Odo! _ ” she cried again.

The woman collapsed at Odo’s feet. Odo knelt down to help her, but she flinched away from him and scrambled to her feet.

“Prophets, I finally found you!” she gasped. “Is it really you?”

He certainly had reason to doubt that. “I suppose so.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “You  _ are _ Odo, aren’t you? The metamorph?”

It had been a long time since he’d heard that term. In fact, the last he’d heard it had been from Laas, and even his Changeling brother had stopped using it once he’d learned the traditional word for their kind. Why would this girl be using it?

Odo tilted his head at her. “I do have the ability to change my shape.”

She breathed out in relief. “So do I, apparently.”

“Are you a Changeling?”

Even as he asked the question, he wondered how that could possibly be. She was a Bajoran, being chased around by rain, possessing only one arm, and using the term “metamorph.” But this was all so surreal that he wouldn’t really be surprised if she were a Changeling.

“Heh. Who knows?” She frowned and glanced over at the cluster of huts. “We should find some shelter. It’s pouring out here.”

Odo glanced up the sky. There was still no water hitting him. “Only on you, apparently.”

She scowled at him. “That doesn’t surprise me. Now let’s go.”

She grabbed him with her only hand, and he was surprised to feel only four fingers close around his. He glanced down. Her ring finger was missing.

She noticed his glance.

“That must have hurt,” he said.

She glared at him. “It didn’t, actually. Now let’s go.”

Odo let himself be tugged along, no longer fazed by the absurdity of what was happening, but with a growing sense of urgency that he find out the answers. This surely couldn’t be some elaborate trick of his people, could it?

They reached the huts far faster than they should have, given the distance. In a matter of seconds, Odo found himself standing under the straw eaves of their slanted, conical roofs, watching as the rain over the girl’s head dripped down between the inefficient sticks, and then suddenly changed direction as if blown by wind. It now gusted at her in full force from the side, as if someone were pranking her with a hose set on the spray setting. Odo glanced around suspiciously for the suspected perpetrators, but still, there was no one to be seen. This was all so absurd. Not even the wormhole aliens had ever played this overtly with nature! And he was almost sure that making this experience play out in his mind wasn’t the Founders’ style. So where was he? In some induced dream, back in the Great Link? Or perhaps he’d never returned to his people. Perhaps Section 31 had planned to do more than just infect him with a deadly disease and he was back in their lab, being poked and prodded and—

There was no sense in useless speculation. He’d find out where he was when his captors chose to reveal that. In the meantime, he’d just have to watch for clues and play out his perceived role. And Odo was a practiced actor. It couldn’t be that hard.

The girl yanked open the door to the hut. Standing immediately inside was Captain Benjamin Sisko.

Odo staggered back, stunned, unsure how to react. Captain Sisko couldn’t possibly be standing there, in the flesh. Odo had no doubt now that he was making a fool of himself. But nevertheless, the habitual answer popped out of his mouth, unbidden.

“Captain!”

Sisko was smiling at him. “You always were such a skeptic, Constable. But I need your help, and this is the only way I can think of to communicate with you.”

Odo gaped at the man who had supposedly been whisked away to the wormhole ages ago. The man who had been trapped there when his people’s weapon had supposedly killed the wormhole aliens and the wormhole had been permanently closed, cutting the Bajorans off from their Celestial Temple. Was it possible? Was it possible that Odo was standing here in the wormhole with Captain Sisko?

No. Impossible. He’d watched the destruction of the wormhole himself.

Sisko gave him a speculative look and seemed to think Odo had had enough excitement for one day. “Another time, perhaps.”

Odo was still staring when Sisko blurred before his eyes. His surroundings undulated, giving Odo the distinctly unwelcome impression of nausea. And suddenly, he was back on his homeworld, standing on that island that now seemed so small and constraining.

Odo stood there for a long moment, regaining his composure, before effortlessly slipping back into the Great Link.   
  



	2. Prologue

~3165—787 years later~

* * *

_ “Another time, perhaps.” _

Odo sluggishly rose from the gelatinous ocean and stepped up onto the island. He drew himself back up into Solid form. It had been some time since he’d last taken his humanoid shape, and he took a moment to assimilate his senses again and get used to the feel of having a Solid body. He’d gotten better at shape shifting, though, and the cursory check of his features was unnecessary. This shape came naturally.

Why did Sisko’s words insist on repeating over and over in his mind, as if on an endless loop? Why couldn’t he get that experience out of his head? He’d tried to convince himself that it didn’t matter, that he’d dreamed the whole thing. Or maybe he was losing his mind. Whatever had happened, it wasn’t as if Sisko was trying to communicate with him. The captain was long dead. He’d been trapped in the wormhole when it was destroyed. But no matter what Odo told himself, it was as if the captain’s words had a mind of their own. As if they were alive, whispering to him,  _ demanding _ that he take Solid form and listen to them. Demanding that he give his old commanding officer a chance to speak to him again.

Odo folded his arms and cast his gaze about the landscape that was as familiar to him as his own shape, searching for any sign that Sisko might intend to whisk him away again. He scanned the distance for as far as he could see and saw nothing but the gentle, endless undulation of his people. Nothing. With a sigh, he dropped his arms to his sides and looked about the island. Nothing there, either. What did he expect to see, anyway? It wasn’t as if the long-dead captain could show up in a runabout.

He tried to shake off the feeling, but still it nagged at him. Odo had always been fond of mysteries, and this was quite the mystery indeed. He wasn’t even sure what to call his experience with Sisko. A dream? A hallucination? He hadn’t thought himself capable of sleeping, let alone dreaming. And that hadn’t felt like a dream. But then, who was to say that his dreams as a Changeling would be the same as when he was a Solid?

A hallucination was the more probable answer. Perhaps every Changeling lost sanity after spending as much time as he had in the Link; that could certainly explain their reluctance to embrace the change he suggested. Or perhaps, it was an effect unique to him, after all the time he’d spent away from the Link before he’d returned to his people.

Either way, what he’d experienced had disturbed him. Especially dreaming up Sisko. He shouldn’t have let his mind wander back to the captain. It was useless to dwell on the past. It was useless to lose himself in the mire of self-deprecation, as was his habit. He sat himself on a rock and folded his hands before him, elbows on his knees, trying to school his mind into tranquility. If he entered the Link now, he’d only feel that dreaded sense of being thrown out of control as his people dissected his newest emotions.

Although he was sure it had been years for the Solids, he hadn’t been with his people for very long when he had discovered their intention to exterminate the wormhole aliens. They’d tailored a weapon that would kill them and had made sure it would leave the wormhole itself stable. The Link had told him that the weapon had been ready for years, even before the war, but Sisko had gotten in the way. They had planned to unleash it now that the war was over and Sisko himself was conveniently inside the wormhole. In their thinking, it would kill two birds with one stone. Odo had known he couldn’t allow that to happen. He’d returned to his people in the first place to prevent genocide. He wasn’t about to let another be committed. And so he had set off to the wormhole to warn the aliens.

Once Odo had arrived in the wormhole, he’d found himself at a frustrating loss for words. How did one address the gods he’d scorned for all of his humanoid existence? How did a nonbeliever even begin to explain why he cared about a god’s safety? He doubted these so-called Prophets knew anything about love or duty. How could they? They had no timeline, no linear life, no need to make friends and form emotional attachments.

He hadn’t been surprised when the wormhole aliens had rebuffed him as a corporeal life form. He’d heard that they had reacted to Sisko in the same way the first time. Desperation had driven him into a panic. He’d pleaded with them, yelled at their complacency, demanded that they respond in some promising way. But his efforts had been to no avail. They had sent him reeling through space, back to his ship, where Weyoun had greeted him with a sorrowful expression and had asked him if he wished to return to his homeworld.

Odo had declined. He’d watched through a Jem’Hadar viewscreen headset as the wormhole had collapsed inward and then had exploded outward into a brilliant supernova of light.

Sisko was trapped. Bajor’s gods were destroyed. The Celestial Temple had winked out like a dead star. Odo had failed in his duty. He wanted nothing more than to return to the depths of the Great Link, to shut out the light, to cave in on himself until he couldn’t feel anymore. For all of his life, he had been the skeptic, the doubter, the one who scowled and harrumphed at the Bajoran faith, the one who had never believed the Prophets had any right to interfere with corporeal existence. Yet they had been everything to the woman he loved. Her faith had defined her, and she had defined him. He’d had one chance to save Nerys’s gods, one time when his actions mattered more than any other, and he had failed. He had let the Prophets die.

And for this, there could be no redemption.

Only Weyoun had understood the enormity of what had just happened. He’d remembered his past clones’ lives and knew Odo as no other Vorta did. For once, the annoying diplomat had kept silent, respectful of his god’s grief.

Odo had briefly considered embarking on the seventy-year journey to the Alpha Quadrant. The Dominion’s technology was superior, but it wasn’t fast enough to shorten that journey by much. But he couldn’t imagine what he could possibly do when he returned. The Prophets were gone. How could he bear to face Nerys, after he’d failed her so miserably? And what use would he be to the Federation or to Bajor? After Section 31’s disease, he’d lost what little faith he’d had in the people he had once sworn to protect. He could just see himself ending up adrift, reluctant to return home because seventy years separated him from the one place where he still belonged.

Heavy-hearted, he had ordered a course for home. Weyoun, like any good Vorta, had obeyed without question. Odo had spent the trip in the Founders’ quarters in his humanoid form, gazing unseeing at the wall across from him, much too tense even to be comfortable in his natural state.

Now, Odo closed his eyes and let his head fall forward. That had been years ago. He’d lost count of them all, but it must have been hundreds. Solids didn’t live that long. He’d lost any chance of seeing Nerys again. At least he’d made her promise never to come looking for him; he didn’t have to worry that she’d gotten trapped in the Gamma Quadrant, too. She had most likely lived out her life in Bajoran space, in command of Deep Space Nine, knowing she’d never see him again, but safe in the assurance that her world was alive and well. He only regretted that he hadn’t tried to return to her, not in all the years that she could have been alive. Perhaps then, she wouldn’t have lost  _ everything _ ; he could have given her something back.

But he hadn’t.

Odo glanced around himself. He still saw no sign of the captain. Satisfied that he was as calm as he could make himself, he slipped back into the Great Link.

Over the next span of time—how long, he couldn’t be sure—he spent increasingly frequent intervals on land, waiting for whatever he expected would come. It began to gnaw at his patience, and even the Link couldn’t chase away his bothersome memories of his experience with Sisko. He found himself pacing the rust-red soil, throwing desperate looks at the flame-colored sky. He was just spreading his arms into wings to pace in the freedom of the atmosphere when he was suddenly whisked from that red-orange land and found himself back among the rolling hills of his dream. He spun about, searching—no,  _ demanding _ —answers. On top of the sound of pelting rain, thunder boomed in the clouds overhead. As before, there was not a raindrop to be seen.

“Captain!” he called. Perhaps Sisko was angry with him for getting him trapped in the wormhole, and was somehow punishing him now. But how? The wormhole was gone…

Again, movement caught his eye. A girl—the same girl as in his last vision—was crashing through the brush, making a beeline for him. Rain poured above her, but now Odonoticed with a flash of alarm that lightning was striking around her on all sides. She leapt forward and dove for him, calling his name desperately, just as a jagged bolt struck inches from her nose. She cried out, stumbling back. Her mouth formed his name again, but her voice was lost in the rain and thunder. Odo dashed forward. He grabbed her and threw her to the ground, remembering from some long-ago reading that lightning tended to strike whatever stood the tallest. She thrashed, surprisingly capable with her single arm, and struggled once again to her feet, staggering away from him. Odo reached out without thinking and grabbed the first thing his hand reached—which happened to be hers—and pulled her back down, sheltering her body with his own just as another bolt struck the ground where she had just been standing.

They huddled that way, him crouched in the grass over her trembling body, until Odo noticed a new presence. How he noticed, he had no idea—there was no shadow—but Odo sensed the figure nonetheless. He looked up, and there, standing free of the girl’s spotlight of rain and lightning, was Captain Sisko.

“Captain!” he growled. “Are you responsible for this?”

“Not for her clouded path, no. But for her continued struggle? It’s possible.”

Odo ducked as another bolt struck near the girl. He raised his head once again to the captain. “I hope you realize what’s happening!”

Sisko sighed. “Let’s talk inside, shall we?”

The lightning ceased. Odo glowered up at the captain as he carefully helped the girl to her feet. Odo unconsciously took the girl’s right hand in his own. Her fingers closed around his and he once again felt the gap where her ring finger was missing. He paid it no mind; he was well used to oddity.

Sisko led them inside the hut where Odo had found him in his first dream. Immediately, the girl’s spotlight of rain began pouring in at her sideways, and Sisko shut the door behind them with a weary sigh. He turned to Odo, who helped the sopping wet girl gently by the shoulders.

“Well?” Odo demanded. “I’m waiting!”

Sisko sighed. “Take a seat, Constable.”

“I’d rather stand.”

Sisko sat in one of the straw chairs. “That girl is not real, Constable.”

“She’s real to me.” His words reminded him of the time he’d spoken of Taya, a mere hologram. There was a fine line between “real” and “imaginary,” and until Odo had more evidence, he accepted nothing Sisko said as fact.

“I realize that.” Sisko looked up at him apologetically. “And it’s completely expected. She’s a manifestation of reality, a reality I’ve been trying to make you aware of for years.”

“How many has it been now?” Odo asked.

“Nearly eight hundred,” Sisko said. “Odo, please take a seat. This may take a while to explain.”

As Odo settled cautiously into a chair, the girl’s hand once again slipped into his. He realized that if Sisko was here, speaking to him, then maybe the Prophets weren’t dead after all. Maybe the wormhole still existed in some remote corner of subspace. Maybe he still had a chance.

“We’re in the wormhole, aren’t we?” he asked.

“In a sense.” Sisko nodded. “And we were the last time I saw you, but you looked so shocked to see me that I thought it wise to let you digest what you had seen.”

“You’re obviously trying to give me an important message,” Odo said. “What I don’t understand is, why me? If you’re so keen on telling me something, then why didn’t you…” He struggled for an appropriate word. “…contact me earlier?”

“I know that time flies in the Great Link,” Sisko said. “I wasn’t sure how long to wait, in order to give you time.”

“Well, you’ve given me time,” Odo said. “And you’ve driven me half mad with it. But why me, Captain? What makes me so special?”

“Well, you’re the only one alive, of course,” Sisko said.

Odo tilted his head, uncomprehending. “The only one alive?”

“Of my senior staff,” Sisko said. “Dr. Bashir…Chief O’Brien…Mr. Worf…they’re all long gone now.”

“What about Kira?” Odo asked.

Sisko swallowed. “I wondered if you’d ask about her.”

“I’m asking,” Odo said.

Sisko hesitated. “Let’s come back to her later.”

_ Alright, _ Odo thought,  _ we’ll play it your way. _ “You haven’t mentioned Dax,” he said.

“Dax is still around,” Sisko said. “She’s a man now. His name is Miro. He’s quite the intrepid explorer, actually.” He grinned. “I think you’ll like him.”

“Then why contact me, when you could contact Dax?”

“For a number of reasons,” Sisko said. “But what I need to tell you begins on Bajor, and unfortunately, this Dax wants nothing to do with Bajor.”

Odo frowned. “I have no intention of returning to Bajor, Captain.”

“Why not?”

“Well, for one thing, it’s a seventy-year journey from my home,” Odo said. “Besides, why would I return? It’s not as if Nerys is still alive.”

“No,” Sisko said, “but her descendant is.”

“Her descendant?” Odo asked. He looked over at the girl at his side, wondering.

Sisko read his look and nodded, smiling broadly.

Odo frowned slightly, feeling a mix of happiness for Nerys and regret that he had missed his chance to be with her. He had always hoped she would move on, but he couldn’t deny the trace of jealousy that also rose within him. “I didn’t know Nerys married.”

“She did, to a rather handsome Bajoran man.” Sisko’s smile disappeared. “But I’m afraid he caught Nerys too late to reverse the damage.”

“Damage?” Odo leaned forward in his chair. “What do you mean, damage?”

“Her Prophets are gone with the Celestial Temple, Odo. What did you expect would happen to her?”

Odo looked down. “I suppose I…held the hope that…her strength would carry her through hard times.”

“What she needed was you, Constable.”

“Well, I’m sorry I didn’t have the advantage of foresight.”

“Odo, this is a problem you’ll have to solve without my help. But there’s something I need you to know, before I return you to your world.”

“Then out with it,” Odo said. “I’m losing patience with this prophetic nonsense.”

“You are not really in the Celestial Temple,” Sisko said. “I am, but you are still on your homeworld. I’ve managed to reach you in a vision.” He held up a hand to forestall Odo’s protest. “I don’t expect you to believe this, Constable. But I need you to listen to me.”

He waited, and Odo gave him a reluctant nod.

“The world I’m showing you is Bajor, Odo. A very torn Bajor. The actions of one Kira Nerys have diverted it from that which the Prophets laid out, and each of her descendants have led it further into chaos.” Sisko paused. “And it’s not just Bajor. The Federation is at war with the Klingons now. And the Cardassians seem to have found something new with which to occupy themselves—they’re pirates, raiders, terrorists. I’m sure you can appreciate the irony.”

“And what do you expect  _ me _ to do about it?” Odo snapped.

“You’ll find that out in time,” Sisko said.

“If all you say is true,” Odo said, “and this woman really is on Bajor, and suffering, then  _ time _ is too long a wait, especially where I come from.”

“Then you’ll consider my request,” Sisko said. “And you’ll return to Bajor, if you so decide.” He spread his hands so as to appear nonthreatening. “I can’t reach you when you mingle in the Link, Constable. And yet I’ve been able to reach you twice now. I’m sure you’ll find a way to get yourself back home.”

“According to you, I  _ am _ still home.”

“You know what I mean.” Sisko favored him with a rather serious smile. “Well, I think that’ll be all for now.”

Suddenly, the hut wavered before him. Odo’s breath caught in alarm. No, not yet! He couldn’t leave—the girl was still in danger! He reached out for her, but she had disappeared from his sight, his surroundings replaced by bleak, red dust and cold, gelid waters before he could shout her name.

Only then, standing alone on his homeworld, did he remember that he didn’t even know what it was.   
  



	3. Chapter 2

~3275~

* * *

Kira Eeris stood, unblinking, before the Bajoran High Council. She forced herself to breathe. Hands clasped behind her back so that no one could see the whiteness of her knuckles, she waited for the head council member to speak.

She stood in a wide hallway with a cathedral ceiling. The members of the High Council sat facing her upon tall chairs, raised nearly to the height of the ceiling. Lining the walls were portraits that carried little meaning to her. Portraits she should have worshipped, just as her people had once worshipped the Prophets. Portraits of faces long gone, faces shrouded with the dust of history, faces to which every good Bajoran looked with respect.

Occupying the place of honor behind the head council member’s throne was the largest portrait of them all. It was raised high enough on the wall that it was impossible to miss and was several meters across in every direction. Draped across its elegantly carved frame was a silken purple banner. An image of a banner was painted across the woman’s slim, proud shoulders. Her eyes were dark, cold, and menacing, white outlining the piercing brown and appearing to glare at any Bajoran who chanced to look in her direction. The smile lines around her mouth pointed to a sharp, stubbornly chutting chin. She had been painted with an air of authority and power that Eeris doubted she had possessed in life, at least not to the degree for which her people worshipped her. Printed on the painted banner was the woman’s name. Kira Nerys.

Had Kira Eeris been named anything but Kira, she might have respected this woman who was nearly ten centuries dead, this woman who had supposedly altered the fate of Bajor for the better. This woman had supposedly, according to legend, played an instrumental role in securing Bajor’s future. Instead, Eeris felt only deep, abiding shame and resentment. This woman had not “secured” Bajor’s future or done anything remotely good for her planet. It was true she had altered Bajor’s fate, but hardly for the better. And, from afar, she had passed the pressure of leadership onto Eeris’s shoulders. Kira Nerys was a legend, an empress, a queen. Legend had it she had singlehandedly flushed the old religious orders from society, clearing the way for the new Societal Order. Modestly enough, she had handed her power to the High Council and had created the Steward position for herself. She was as close as the Bajorans came to having a real god. The Steward had no political power; that lay solely in the hands of the High Council. Since Kira Nerys, every Steward had been a direct female descendant. Her duty was to be a spiritual advisor to a world gone mad. And Eeris was next in line.

“Kira Eeris!” The head council member spoke in a sharp, shrill voice that pierced Eeris’s eardrums. “What have you to say for yourself?”

“I don’t belong here!” Eeris said. “I never have!”

“If those words were issued from any mouth but yours, Miss Kira, they would be tolerable!”

Eeris narrowed her eyes and took a coiled step closer to the throne upon which the head council member sat. “I know the impact of what I’m saying, Minister. Would you presume to think that a member of the Kira clan would speak without considering the consequences?”

“I know that your case is an exception. You are a blemish upon your family’s history, Miss. Kira.”

Eeris clenched her teeth. “Then don’t call me Kira anymore.”

“I’m shocked that a Bajoran of your prestige would allow herself to fall from grace.”

“This is what I’ve wanted since the day I was born!” Eeris clenched her fists. “I’m different from the rest of you! I can’t believe I once thought I was to be Bajor’s future! A Steward of a different color, or so the Kiran elders told me! But that was before they learned what I was!” She took another step forward. “Well, to hell with Bajoran customs and stipulations. I am not one of you!”

“Take her away,” the head council member said with an uncaring wave of his hand. “We will have to choose a different successor. She is of no use to us.”

“ _ No use _ ,” Eeris growled. “So you don’t even care about who I am. After all these lies about supporting the spiritual development of each Bajoran individual without the guidance of a divine being—”

Before she could finish her thought, a guard gripped her from behind, his scratchy leather glove closing over her left arm. She yanked it away, but he snapped her body right back. Her heart hammered in her chest as she fought to get free. She knew they’d make her pay for all she’d done, for the trouble she’d caused, for being such a thorn in her people’s side—and for the death of that elder. She gasped for air, her lungs heaving desperately, to no avail. Light exploded behind her eyelids. Her arms and legs thrashed as she struggled. Then her captor recoiled in horror. Eeris looked down at herself. The arm the guard had gripped had disappeared, as if into thin air.

Darkness descended, and Eeris was dimly aware of the cold tile floor slamming into her side before the light winked out.

* * *

 

_ The floor was cold and solid beneath her feet, the walls arching over her head like cruel sentries, the stained-glass people in the ceiling glaring down at her. A cold, simulated breeze blew across her face. She was dressed in a tight and constraining outfit presumed to be one of the originals from the Bajoran militia, the one Kira Nerys had once worn. Eeris was no clothier, but she could tell it was a lie. The cloth was too well-preserved, the red stained a dark, royal shade of purple, the collar so smothering she could barely breathe. No, this was no militia uniform. This was a torture device, sewn out of a false respect for a woman long gone. It no longer served a purpose even remotely like that of the original outfit. And yet this was the required costume. Her hair had been fixed the same as Colonel Kira Nerys as well, though she preferred to wear it short-cropped like a boy’s. A scratchy wig made the change possible. _

_ “Welcome to the inaugural hall!” the eldest of the Kiran elders said. The elders were all lined up across the front of the raised stage. “You, Kira Eeris, are here to complete the time-honored rite of passage just as did your mother before you, your grandmother before her, your great-grandmother before her, your great-great-grandmother before her…” _

_ The list went on. In rehearsals, Eeris always stopped paying attention after the second “great.” She doubted the head elder actually bothered to list all of the Stewards who had been inaugurated before her. It had, after all, been nine hundred years since Kira Nerys had made history. _

_ “We, the current assembly of Kiran elders as well as your predecessor, gather here today to witness the next step you take toward your adulthood…” _

_ And on he droned. Didn’t he ever get tired of this speech? At least today was the last time in her generation that he’d need to make it, Eeris thought uncharitably. Today was her real inauguration. _

_ But as the head elder continued, Eeris’s attention began to wander for an entirely different reason. Her predecessor, the current Steward, sat atop her throne this very minute. As was the custom within the Kira clan, the Steward was Eeris’s mother. Eeris’s hands began to tremble as the hour drew closer to the mark. She clasped her hands behind her back to shore up her strength. The last thing she wanted to do was take her mother’s position. The Steward role was drowned in gaudy ceremonies and traditions as it was, effectively warding off any meaningful effect it might have had on the Bajoran people, but Eeris’s mother in particular made a terrible Steward. She was far too focused on her own power to play counselor for her people. She had already tainted the role with her reign. Even if Eeris had believed her people could be eased back from their foolish traditions and galactic isolationism, the time it would take to fix the Steward just wasn’t worth it. _

_ Given the choice, Eeris would never have chosen this path. But it was set for her. _

_ The head elder stood in front of the Steward’s throne and behind a central podium, upon which rested a silken purple pillow. He lifted the pillow on his palm. “Resting on this empty pillow is the shadow of the Adornment Ring, to be surrendered by the current Steward and presented to Kira Eeris.” _

_ At that, Eeris’s mother tilted her head. Kira Edoli was a Bajoran through and through, and her pride in her position made Eeris sick. Her mother lifted her right hand and glanced at the ring on her ring finger. And then she looked casually at the head elder, a look so casual and innocent that it seemed to say, “I’m sorry, did you just say you were going to strip me of my title?” _

_ “Steward,” the head elder said with a respectful bow of his head, “if you please. The ring.” _

_ Eeris’s mother waved her hand as if in dismissal, but she daintily held her fingers out to the line of Kiran elders. One of them plucked the ring from her finger and placed in on the pillow. _

_ “You have my gratitude…Edoli.” The head elder favored Eeris’s mother—now officially her predecessor—with a condescending look crafted to shrivel royalty. He then turned back to Eeris. “Will the next Steward please step forward?” _

_ Eeris’s hands suddenly felt cold and clammy. She tensed and ducked her head. Now was her moment. She was expected to come forth and accept her mother’s ring without question. She was expected to take the throne her mother would surrender and try to look like she was leading the Bajoran people. But it could never be true. The change Bajor needed required political power, and Eeris had only whatever meager respect her people afforded her. And she wasn’t exactly a highly respected civilian. She had been singled out for her differences, made an outsider, even as her destiny was forced upon her. The only reason Eeris was expected to become Steward now was to uphold tradition. Tradition, however, was the last thing Bajor needed. _

_ To someone who actually respected Bajoran society, the Steward role might have been an honor. She did, after all, serve as an example to her people. Provided they listened to her, she could unify them with a single speech. But for an outsider like Eeris, the Steward had little more power than that of a figurehead, bolted to the bowsprit of a schooner. It watched the waters ahead but left action to the captain at the helm. It had eyes carved from wood, but it could not see through them. It wielded robes and rings and all manner of adornment, but never would they blow in the wind. As Steward, Eeris would be a woman of solid stone. _

_ Eeris did not move. _

_ “Will the next Steward please step forward?” _

_ The head elder must have thought her too nervous to hear him the first time. Nevertheless, Eeris remained still. She glared up at her mother, where she looked down upon Eeris from her throne. She had stained her role and left Eeris to clean up the mess. And now she expected Eeris to take on a leadership role that relied on cultivating the people’s respect, when she knew full well that all Eeris had ever gotten from the Bajora were scorn and revulsion. _

_ It wasn’t her fault she was a social castoff who was somehow still in line for the throne. Eeris had never asked for any of this. She’d been a young girl when, in a fit of bad fashion sense, she had cycled through five different eye colors and three different hair colors before she had realized that those changes weren’t supposed to happen at one’s bidding. The end result had been brown eyes and red hair, making her look disgustingly like the first Steward, Kira Nerys, but all purposeful attempts to change her appearance again had failed. Eeris wasn’t in control of her abilities. _

_ And still, her people demanded that she take her place as Steward…all for the sake of tradition. She had waited in silence for most of her life. But with the head elder now demanding that she step forward, she could be passive no longer. _

_ “Eeris. That means you,” her mother said. _

_ “I know,” Eeris said. _

_ “Eeris,” the head elder said, “you are the next Steward. Please step forward.” _

_ “Do you both think I’m daft?” Eeris cried. “I know exactly what’s expected of me! I’ve rehearsed this inauguration for over ten years!” _

_ “Then  _ do  _ what is expected of you,” her mother hissed. _

_ Eeris straightened and tightened her fingers into a knot behind her back. “Under no condition!” _

_ The head elder suddenly staggered off the stage toward her, his frail knees wobbling beneath his body. The ring dropped from the pillow. Eeris took a step back. This, she hadn’t rehearsed. _

_ The head elder buckled at the waist and groped for the ring. He caught it in gnarled hands and stumbled toward her. Eeris took another step back, but his momentum carried him forward. He grasped her right hand and tugged it down to his level. She jerked her arm back, trying to pry it from his grip, but he was strong-armed for an old man. He held her wrist firmly, bony fingers crushing her carpals, destroying her circulation. With clumsy hands, he forced the ring onto her finger. _

_ “Kira Eeris,” he gasped, “as of this day I hereby confer upon you the position of Steward. Wear the title with pride.” _

_ Then he stumbled off. He doubled over as he reached the stage. He collapsed against the steep stairs, as if this final heroic effort had drained him. _

_ Eeris glanced down at the ring on her finger. She looked back up into the cold eyes of her mother. And then, before she was sure what had happened, she heard the shrill vibration as the ring hit the floor, and then her mother’s gasp of outrage. The former Steward gripped the armrests of her throne and stood, glowering down at her insolent daughter. _

_ It occurred to Eeris to look down at her hand. She cried out and stumbled backwards. Her ring finger was gone! _

_ Her mother descended gracefully from the stage and plucked the ring up from the hard tiles. “Have you no respect for your name?” _

_ “My name,” Eeris said, “is Eeris. I no longer consider myself a Kira.” _

_ “You are my child,” her mother said, shaking her head sadly, “and a mistaken one at that.” Her mother slipped the ring back onto her own finger. “You will stand trial for this outrage.” _

_ “I know,” Eeris said. _

_ “Your… _ gifts  _ will not be easily forgiven,” her mother said. _

_ “In that case, tell the Bajoran High Council I’m sorry I’m not one of you,” Eeris said, surprised when tears pricked her eyes. “Tell them I wish to the Prophets I wasn’t an outsider, but I can’t help what I am!” _

_ “Indeed, the Prophets,” her mother sneered. “Heaven knows where you even heard of such nonsense!” _

_ Her mother’s eyes were cold. So cold. Cold, dark, demanding. Eeris had never felt more alone. _

* * *

“Eeris? Can you hear me? Eeris?”

There was something cold and damp touching her forehead. Eeris struggled to gain a foothold on the thick haze that suffocated her, pressing down on her limbs and chest, submerging her in a liquid ocean that…

“Eeris…”

She struggled to open her eyes. Her lids felt as heavy as duridium weights. She wasn’t even sure if she wanted to resurface. She would be perfectly content to lie in this soft abyss forever…

“Eeris!”

With one final heroic effort, Eeris tugged herself back to consciousness. Her eyes flicked open. Her mother’s face was looming over her, one hand pressing a damp rag to her forehead.

Eeris groaned low in her throat. Not this again. Her mother knew that damp, cold rags against her forehead didn’t do for her what they did for other Bajorans, and yet she insisted on living the lie that Eeris was still one of them. She reached her hand up to grasp her mother’s wrist and arrest her movements.

Her right hand. Not her left.

“Ah, there, you’re awake.” Her mother drew back, peering at her. “Are you alright?”

Eeris struggled upright rather stiffly. Her left side felt like a truck had smashed into it, but she knew it would regenerate soon enough. It was bruised, not missing. Her arm, however…. She felt her left shoulder. Her arm was still missing, but strangely, it didn’t hurt a bit. The skin was smooth and unmarred where her arm had once been, as if the wound had already closed up on its own.

“I think I’m alright,” she said. She wearily took in her surroundings. Somehow, she had ended up in her bedroom in the house where she lived with her parents, Edoli and Jayde. “What happened? The last thing I remember was the guard grabbing me…and then…”

“A guard brought you back, slouched over his shoulder like a limp sack of potatoes,” her mother said. “Frankly, I’m surprised they left you in one piece, after the stunt you pulled.”

Eeris had done worse than reject her place in the Societal Order. And that alone was a heinous crime. Her mind reeled back to the head Kiran elder, slumped against the stairs to the stage. More than anything, she wished that memory was nothing but a dream, but she remembered it too clearly. She could too clearly see herself standing there before the podium, watching the light fade from the head elder’s eyes, the blood draining from her face as she realized what she had done…

Whatever had happened to him, she was responsible for it. She almost didn’t want to ask, but she forced the words out.

“Will the head elder be alright?”

“Dead,” her mother said.

Eeris’s room spun. She braced her arm behind her so she wouldn’t fall back against her sheets, wishing she had another hand so she could bury her face. How was this happening to her? She hadn’t wanted to hurt anyone. She had just been trying to resist the destiny her people had forced upon her. How could she be so careless as to get someone killed?

Until then, everything had been going according to plan. Eeris hadn’t liked the plan, but at least no one was going to get hurt. She would ascend to the Steward throne. She would watch as time passed, as her people changed, as society expanded and contracted, and she would have no part in it. She wondered what sort of life she would lead as the first Steward ever to be hated by the people. Rebel, dissenter, and now murderess…although there was a certain peace in the concept of bowing to her society’s demands, Eeris knew that was no longer possible. The Steward’s power was based on popular respect. A girl who couldn’t walk down the street without someone pointing and sneering at her strange body with its alien tendencies could never hope to earn that.

As Steward, Eeris would lose herself, and any potential she may have had for making a difference.

“So,” she finally asked, “what’s the verdict?”

“I’m told you’ve been cast from the Societal Order,” her mother said. Her lips tightened. “You should have gotten the death sentence.”

At that, Eeris did fall back against her sheets. She stared hard at the smooth, white ceiling. Her own mother. Her own mother was saying these words. It was just as she’d always known—her mother was far too wrapped up in the glory of her position to care about her own daughter. But the simple fact was, she was right. Eeris deserved death. And the fact that she owed the Societal Order for sparing her life annoyed her to no end.

Her mother was silent for a moment. She started to set a stiff hand on Eeris’s leg, but changed her mind. “The council wants you back in school.”

Eeris barked out a humorless laugh. “Really? What for? Aren’t they afraid I’ll kill the kids, too?”

Her mother grimaced. “I believe they have accepted that your intentions were innocent. They want your experience, your insight. You are, after all, the member of our clan with the most training for Steward. The council’s inconvenient at times, I’ll give you that, but they’re not stupid.”

“ _ Inconvenient _ ,” Eeris scoffed. “They deigned to think they could decide my whole life for me. I’m only twenty, Mother. Don’t you think I deserve something better?”

Her mother sighed, and this time her hand did settle on Eeris’s leg. “I can’t disobey the council, Eeris.”

“Oh, come on, Mother. How good an advisor do you think I’d be?” She shook her head. “Get me a place in regular school. Not the ridiculous institution that passes for school for us Steward trainees. Maybe then, I’ll have the time to figure out…just  _ what _ I really am.” She gestured frustratedly at her shoulder stump.

Her mother paused, rubbing her leg reassuringly through the sheets.

_ Please say yes, _ Eeris thought to herself.  _ Please say yes, please say yes… _

She dared to lift her head and catch a glimpse of her mother’s expression. The empty look in her saddened eyes spoke only of “no.”

Eeris let her head fall back against her pillow. “You’re not even going to try, are you?”

“Outcasts don’t get to choose their place, Eeris.”

“I don’t get why I’m still here at all,” Eeris muttered.

Her mother sighed. The fingers on her leg stalled and squeezed. “I can arrange for your passage off the planet, Eeris, but that’s the best I can do.”

Even if she left Bajor, where could she go? How would she eke out a living? Her planet was so completely isolated, she’d be lost in the galaxy.

Eeris sighed and rolled her head away on the pillow. “Maybe you could wait on that.”

“Why?”

She abruptly rolled over so that she faced away from her mother, jerking her leg out of her mother’s hand. The hand retracted, replaced by emptiness.

“I’ll go back to Steward school,” she murmured. “I’ll just see how it goes. Then we’ll see.”

A heavy silence set in. Eeris stubbornly fixed her gaze on one carved oak leg of her desk until her mother’s weight lifted from her bed, and the mattress expanded it its full thickness once again. She listened as her mother padded quietly to her door, turned out her light, and then swung her door softly closed behind her. Only then did Eeris flop back onto her back, throwing her remaining arm carelessly over her head, briefly disconcerted when her fingers didn’t lace together on the pillow.

As she stared blankly into the darkness, it occurred to her that when she was expected to become Steward, at least she’d had a role in society.   
  



	4. Chapter 3

Eeris stomped to the front of the empty classroom, tossed her supply bag to the floor beneath her desk, and slumped into her seat. It was the same seat she’d occupied for more than ten years of Steward school. She wondered if the instructor would let her keep it, or if he would demote her to a seat in the back of the room instead. There was no chance of becoming Steward, after all. She had lost the privileges associated with her upbringing.

Her classmates were all cousins of varying ages, as no Bajoran outside of the Kira clan could train to be Steward. She waited for them with her chin in her hand. The classroom was made of more window than wall and looked out on the entire expanse of Lohnar Province. Immediately outside the front windows was the dark and gloomy residential district, and beyond that the suburbs where Eeris’s father worked. The suburbs led on to the city province of Hill, though by the time the view reached the northern sea, it was shrouded in city haze. Immediately out the back windows were the outskirts of the residential district, and beyond that, hugging close to the river, was farmland, too far off to see more than crumbling farmhouses and stormy skies.

Off to the left were the poor sectors, characterized by dirt and dust and a haze that hung in the air like slick, musty cobwebs. There were no real houses to be seen, but the outcasts who lived there had built straw huts in plain view of the school’s windows. Candles burned inside, dispelling the murk for a radius of no more than a few feet. And beyond that narrow strip, dressed in so many torches that it might as well have been a transport station, was the city wall, dark and menacing and with gates topped with spearheads. Its rather short height lent the view to the rolling hills beyond, which disappeared into dense fog after about a kilometer. The Steward instructor was fond of reiterating that the hills ended in jagged cliffs, which dropped right off into the northern ocean. A fall from those cliffs would surely be fatal. And if one didn’t die upon impact with the water, then one certainly would of drowning, since no patrol boats would be sent out to save them.

All things considered, the Steward school was situated perfectly, in clear view of everything Bajor had to boast—as well as everything it had to hide. The only thing Eeris couldn’t do from behind those ceiling-high windows was  _ do _ anything about her surroundings. She would have loved to bound into the poor sectors and fix the place up, maybe place a few air fresheners in the poor’s huts. But she was powerless. Not for the first time, she cursed whatever luck had lost her both her arm and her finger. Maybe if her differences weren’t so obvious, she might have  _ some _ chance at gaining the people’s respect.

But as much as she hated being here in the schoolhouse, today it was better than being at home. Her father had worked late again last night and hadn’t been up for breakfast. Her mother, though never much fun, was actually quite a good cook and an entertaining conversationalist. This morning, however, Eeris had found herself without a single word to say. Neither of them knew what the Societal Order had planned for her next, so there wasn’t much use in making idle plans for the week ahead. And besides, Eeris had already demonstrated her disinterest in following Bajoran customs, which were her mother’s sole interest. With conversing out the window, she had tried her hand at small talk, which she’d never been good at. It seemed a family trait; her mother had proven unequal to the task, and Eeris had eventually given up, eating her breakfast in silence. She was half tempted to visit her father in his office later that day. He was almost never home or awake at the same time she was, and she missed him. On those rare days when he joined his family at the table, meals went just a little more smoothly.

“Well, well, well, look who’s first in school today.”

Eeris twisted to locate the instructor’s voice. He was striding to the front center of the classroom from his private side entrance, smiling a smile that Eeris might have thought sincere on any face but his. He was the epitome of the sort of condescending teacher who only listened to what you had to say if it agreed with what he taught. And when he didn’t listen, he cocked his head and quirked his lips into a frown that Eeris supposed he thought made him appear interested. It really just looked like he had a pebble stuck in his boot.

“I thought I should claim the seat while I still could,” Eeris replied, her eyes narrowed.

“A fascinating choice,” the instructor said. “And here I thought you would want to put as much distance as possible between yourself and the Steward.”

“Well, it never hurts to maintain a little normality,” Eeris said, staring straight ahead.

The instructor chuckled. “There is a place for rebels, you know. A better place than a desk that should soon be filled by someone more deserving. I could see that you’re exiled to the poor sectors, if it suited my fancy.”

“Don’t worry,” Eeris said. “I’m just here to help train the others, and then I’ll be out of your hair.”

“Please,” the instructor said. “We both know that’s just a euphemism for your execution.”

Eeris dropped her head into her arms and ignored him.

She had never been more grateful to hear the double doors open to the public suddenly creak on their hinges. The morning crowd began to pour in. Eeris’s cousins trickled in like tributaries from a main river, choosing their usual seats. A few snuck accusing glances at Eeris for occupying the seat of honor. Of course, news of her refusal of the Steward had already reached them. Eeris searched for some sign of sympathy in her cousins’ eyes, but there was none.

The instructor lifted his head, eyes sweeping over his flock, and began addressing the students. His voice became a meaningless hum as Eeris rested her chin in her palm and stared listlessly out the window, her gaze panning over the run-down houses and drifting across the hazy city beyond.

“…And if a Steward is to maintain the respect of the people—Eeris, are you paying attention at all?”

Eeris tilted her head up to look at her instructor. “Sure. Steward, respect, people. Got it all down.” The truth was, she didn’t need to be listening to have it all down. She’d known these things for years.

“Eeris, since you obviously have no interest in my instruction, why don’t you take a turn? Offer your peers some insight on how to best serve the people. And make it good.”

Eeris reluctantly straightened in her seat and turned to look around at the rest of her class. These were her cousins. Her relatives. Her  _ family _ . And not only that, they had been her only friends for most of her life. These were the people who understood her the best, who would have supported her had she accepted her fate. The least she could do was support them in return. She opened her mouth, prepared with the advice she’d planned to give anyone who asked—and the idea flew right out of her head. She just sat there, gaping blankly at her classmates, at her academic rivals…

“Today, Eeris,” the instructor said. “Unless you’d like me to inform the High Council that your usefulness to me has expired…”

“No, no,” Eeris said, shifting in her seat. She had no plan for what to say, so she was surprised to hear a ring of truth in the words that did fly from her mouth.

“Look, you guys…being in line for the Steward means you have the society’s respect. All of Bajor looks to you. I never had that, not since everyone saw how different I was…but you still can. Don’t throw that away.”

“The way you did?” the instructor asked. “How hypocritical. We cannot accept you among us.”

An agreeing murmur rippled among Eeris’s classmates. Eeris slumped in her seat and sighed.

“Unless, of course, you’d like to reconsider your abdication.”

Eeris glared at him. “Never in a million years.”

The instructor cocked his head at that, but moved on, evidently content that she leave it at that. He couldn’t hear the words that Eeris whispered to herself, the completion of her thought.

_ But maybe my family is made of different material than me. _

In fact, she was sure of it. It made her heart ache.

As soon as the bell chimed for break some indeterminate time later, Eeris hauled herself out of her desk and followed her classmates to the cafeteria. They filed in a line past the lunch counter, letting the staff gracelessly dump spoonfuls of pudding and soup onto the trays they slid along the counter. Eeris, never one to take the fate handed to her, dared to glare up at the lady who splashed glop on her blouse in her haste to move on to the next student. She was met only with a wide-eyed look of revulsion and disgust. And a regretful shake of the head.

There would be a new Steward soon enough. Eeris had plenty of cousins who would soon be up to the task. No, her refusal to comply with society wasn’t what bothered these servant women. It was her alienness, made evident by her stump of a left shoulder and her missing right finger. Eeris roughly pushed her tray along and waited for the next lady to splash glop on her.

When she was through the lunch line, she found herself an alcove in the far wall and perched herself there, far away from the giggling and babbling of her cousins. She expertly balanced her tray on her knees and picked up her spoon as if to wield it as a weapon. Grimacing, she shoved her spoon into the soup-glop up to the handle and then lifted a bite-sized chunk out of it. She peered at the bile down the tip of her nose. Judging that it was at least devoid of poison, she shoved it into her mouth. She only winced at the taste for a moment before she suddenly didn’t notice it anymore, as if it had stopped registering in her brain.

Stopped registering? How could that be?

She swallowed the bite and gingerly felt her tongue with a finger. Damn. No taste buds. First she’d lost her finger, then she’d lost her arm, and now she’d lost her taste buds.

Couldn’t her strange abilities be useful for once, and get her something she needed? Like hair that didn’t have to be restyled for society’s convenience? Or maybe sharper eyesight?

Her classmates’ banter filtered through her more-than-adequate ears. They were laughing, joking, enjoying each other’s company. Eeris set her spoon back on her tray and gripped it tightly in her only hand as she watched their camaraderie, unaware of the forlorn expression that settled over her face.

“Remember that time that you…”

“I’ll never forget! I walked right up to him and…”

“You’re kidding! You didn’t!”

“She did.”

“No!” A peal of laughter. “I wish I could have seen that!”

“Better yet, catch it as a hologram!”

“Oh, and sell it to the Ferengis…”

“You wouldn’t!”

“Oh, maybe…”

Eeris sighed and bowed her head. She hadn’t realized until she’d  _ been _ cast out just how lonely it could be. She used to have friends. These people were once her comrades, her supporters. That had been back when they were all reaching for the same goal, all trying to please the same elders. All stuck in the same boat. She had been a good actor back then, pretending Bajor’s backwards society didn’t bother her as much as it did, and that was probably why they had tolerated her. Back then, most of them had even been proud of her, and encouraged her, knowing that of them all, she was the only one who would actually  _ be  _ Steward someday. Some had even felt sorry for her, training to succeed a Steward who’d twisted the position as much as her mother had. The Steward training between them had destroyed what little had ever existed of their relationship. There had been a time when Eeris wondered what could be worse than succeeding Kira Edoli.

Rejection. Being cast out from the crowd. It was much worse.

Eeris felt her stomach grumble and she scowled. Glowering, she stuffed more of her society’s tasteless food into her mouth and swallowed before she could wish it still had flavor.

Her classmates erupted into laughter. They had gathered close together, and although Eeris had far more cousins than could fit at one table, they were sure doing their best to appear like a tiny clique. Because, for all intents and purposes in this society, they were.

Eeris sighed and stared at her food. Her food that, due to none other than her strange nature, she could no longer taste. Her food, lumpy and unappetizing. Her food, procured by the dullest people in existence.

But it was Bajoran. And it was  _ her _ food. 

Burying her distaste, Eeris shoveled the rest of the food into her mouth. She hopped down from the alcove, headed over to the dish recycler, and tossed her tray in. Then, arm behind her back and bent across her waist as if she could still clasp her hands together behind her back, she strode dutifully toward the outer fringes of her kinsmen.

She’d been afraid they wouldn’t even bother to acknowledge her, outcast that she was, but acknowledge her they did. Eyes rested first on her shoulder, narrowed in disgust, and then reluctantly traveled up to her face. That missing arm was a symbol of her defiance as much as her alienness. She stared back at them, placing her hand on her hip. She didn’t care if she looked like a moody teenager with that one-arm, hip-jut stance. It was as close as she could come to defending her ground now that her body language was so limited.

“Well, well, well, if it isn’t Cousin Failure.”

“She can’t even keep her arms in place!”

“What’ll it be next, her hair?”

Laughter roared at that. Eeris flushed a deep crimson. She lifted her chin and gathered her wits.

“I didn’t  _ ask _ for my metamorphic abilities,” she said. “And I certainly never asked for my mother’s throne. So if any of you who  _ wants _ the position wants any pointers, just let me know. I trained my whole life.”

“And then wasted that training,” one quipped. “Couldn’t you have just given up before you’d gotten so far? Would’ve saved us some hustle and bustle.”

“The inauguration won’t be for a while,” Eeris said. “Especially with my help, you have plenty of time.”

“Trying to be part of society again, Eeris?” another chuckled. “Too late—you already turned your back on us.”

“I turned my back on the Steward,” Eeris whispered, “on a future that isn’t mine. On some useless position where all I’d do is sit in a chair and wave my ring around all day. I never turned my back on  _ you _ .”

“Yes, you did,” said another of her cousins, “or you might have gone about your failure more…tactfully.”

Tears pricked Eeris’s eyes, and she spun around, turning her back to her family for entirely different reasons from what they assumed, before she could let one of them see her cry.

_ Be careful what you wish for,  _ a mocking voice in her head taunted.  _ You might just get it. _


	5. Chapter 4

“That’s  _ it _ ,” Eeris told herself. She was sitting on the lid of a toilet in a restroom stall, hugging her knees to her chest and glowering at the stall door. “That’s  _ it _ !”

Her shoulders shook as the tears came flooding out. She’d held them back since the High Council had returned her home, but she could restrain them no longer. She buried her face between her knees, chest heaving as sob after sob wracked her body. She peeked up at the stall door through bleary eyes, and all at once a burning rage seized her.

“How  _ dare _ they?” she demanded of the stall. When the emptiness yielded no answer, she swung her fist at the metal walls. She was about to berate herself for damaging the only arm she had left when she noticed the complete absence of pain. She dared to glance down at her hand—had it disappeared, too? —but all she saw was a centimeter-deep gouge in the wall.

Eeris stared at her hand. She brought her fist up to her face, maintaining a careful distance, lest she inflict the same damage on herself. There was not a mark on her knuckles. She gingerly extended her fingers. So far, so good. She retracted them, curling them back into a fist. Still painless.

“ _ Damn _ ,” she whispered. It was like her side, after she’d blacked out—her body had regenerated any skin that might have been broken. It was almost worse than losing a limb. That was terrifying, but at least it only endangered  _ her _ . She didn’t want power or force. She wanted to  _ help _ people, not hurt them. She would be saving her world right now if she thought there was any point. Hurting people…it was a terrible thing to do.

She looked again at the dent in the wall.  _ Damn. _

She had to get out of this society.

The idea had barely formed in her mind before her decision was made. She turned the lock and threw open the stall door before stumbling out of the bathroom. The doors and walls of the school building became a monotonous blur as she streaked down the hallway and staggered out the front doors onto a worn, cracked sidewalk. Then she threw caution to the wind and tore through the streets of Lohnar, not daring to stop even once or even look around. She was getting out of this Prophet-forsaken place and she was not coming back. She was leaving her classmates, her teacher, those infernal walls and those imprisoning windows. She was leaving her people, her kinsmen, her fellow Bajorans. Who was she kidding, anyway? She didn’t belong here. It was time she accepted it. She had to stop pretending.

Eventually, she would have to consider the question of where she  _ did _ belong, where she was going. She had little idea of  _ what _ she was in the first place. Some kind of metamorphic evolutionary offshoot from the Bajora? Was she some sort of mutant, descended from hell itself? She didn’t know. But those were answers that would have to wait. All she knew was that she wouldn’t find them here in Lohnar, or even here within the Societal Order. She was done with her home.

At long last, she reached the poor sectors, and the nauseating stench of refuse hit her nose like a disruptor blast. This section of town, she knew, didn’t get the same trash collection services as the rest of Lohnar, and the waste had piled up. She stopped short and scanned the huts ahead of her for the dark society gates. They were farther ahead than they looked from the classroom windows, but she could still see them through the dark haze immediately ahead of her. But only barely. She took a hesitant step forward. Her head lightened as the street odor swirled around her. The ground tipped closer and she staggered. And as suddenly as the stench had filled her nostrils, it evaporated. Eeris blinked, regaining her bearings. She steadied herself, reaching out to the nearest hut for balance, not caring what her fingers touched. Her head felt fine. Her balance was returning.

The stench was gone.

Now it was not the smell that turned her stomach, but the deep feeling of dread that lodged in her gut. Experimentally, she expelled the air from her lungs and then inhaled through her nose. She concentrated on the feel of her lungs expanding and the suspicious absence of any trace of smell. There was not even fragrance—it was as if her olfactory sensors had simply stopped working.

Frustrated and at wit’s end, Eeris dropped to a crouch and tucked her head between her knees, letting the tears stream down her face. Not again. This simply could not be happening to her. True, this newest change would help her get through the stench of the outskirts, but she couldn’t imagine approaching a fresh bouquet of flowers and finding herself unable to smell their scent.

When would it end? When would she stop losing parts of herself that ordinary Bajorans took for granted? Her people claimed that she had abandoned them, but they could never understand. How could they ever understand how daunting a position like the Steward was, when they looked at her and saw nothing but the stump of her shoulder? And why did this have to happen to  _ her _ , the now-abdicated successor to the Steward? She scowled at herself—scowled at very deity in existence who might have cursed her this way. What on Bajor had she ever done to deserve this trouble? It didn’t seem to be the bane of any other Bajoran’s existence. True, she had always been a thorn in her people’s side, always a bit more spirited than they would have liked her to be, but still, she had gone along with their rules. It wasn’t until recently that she had started to follow her heart.

The unwelcome memory of the head elder, crumpled on the steps, flashed across her mind. She shook her head to dismiss the image. She told herself it wasn’t really her fault. He was the one who had staggered off the stage and forced the ring onto her finger, instead of accepting that she had chosen a path no Kira had ever chosen. He hadn’t needed to do that.

Eeris wasn’t sure what drove her to lift her head and struggle to her feet, but after a few pleasantly odorless steps, she realized what it was. There was not a single person around. Not one scantily clad beggar, not one impoverished character with clothes in tatters. The farther Eeris walked into the supposed poor sectors, the more suspiciously empty they became.

She had expected people of all ages, sleeping forms covered in newspapers. She had expected the faint murmur of voices within the huts. But there was nothing. Not a single person, not even a single scavenging alley cat. Not even a rat.

Eeris’s gaze fell on the hut nearest her, just ahead of her and to her right. Her feet began to move toward it, as if of their own accord. Her footsteps became surer as she neared the hut, somehow knowing exactly what she would find inside. Her hand shot out and closed around the edge of the heavy cloth, draped across the entrance, that passed for a door. She took a deep breath, and with one swift motion, swept it aside. She swung in, her hand on the doorframe, and cast her gaze about inside.

Nothing.

She let out her breath. There was a single candle sitting on a central table and emitting the soft, bright glow she was so accustomed to seeing from the classroom window. But aside from that candle, the inside of the hut was a single spare room, devoid of even cushions to sit on. There were no mattresses or even wisps of straw scattered about the floor. Just that single candle, flickering in the hazy darkness.

Eeris frowned.

She darted across to the next hut, not caring that it was out of the way of the gate, and flipped the door flap open. She was met with the same sight as before. She shook her head, perplexed. Why would the huts be so empty? If the poor sectors were uninhabited, then why did society teach that the beggars and the impoverished lived there?

Eeris decided she didn’t care. She had left any care for these people behind when she had left that bathroom stall in the schoolhouse. Her people had turned their backs on her. She had lost the only friends she ever had. It didn’t seem much of a crime to turn her back in return, especially given that there was likely nothing she could do to help Bajoran society anyway. She didn’t need to worry about what went on in the poor sectors or what secrets were kept. Resolute now, she set back on her path to the gate.

She must have been drawing closer to the society’s edge, because it stood out clearly through the haze, a dark outline against the surrounding dimness. She kept an even pace forward, her arm tense at her side, willing herself to be grateful she couldn’t smell the stench around her. Before she knew it, she had passed the last hut and was standing before a huge, wrought-iron gate of spearheads lined up and pointing to the sky. Eeris tilted her head up to see the top of the gate, but she decided it must have been built on a downward slant from her classroom. It was too tall to see over.

She glanced about for a way out, but found herself at a loss. She tested the iron bars of the gate, to no avail. She wondered if her hand would morph away if she cut herself on the rust. She decided not to test her luck. She still needed her hand.

She searched again left and right. Maybe the poor people had left the Societal Order already, and that was why their sectors were uninhabited. If they’d found a way out, then certainly could she.

At long last, she slid down against the wall, defeated. She should have known from the start. There was no way out of this place. The Bajorans were too careful, too tradition-oriented, to let any small issue of security slip through their fingers. They had kept their eyes on Eeris for this long; it was no surprise that they would go to any lengths possible to prevent escape.

Then she noticed the gap in the dark stone of the wall.

She shifted a few feet, closing the distance. It was not a large gap, per se, but it was large enough to notice, the darkness within it making it stand out in the comparatively light haze. Eeris knelt on the ground and patted around it, and discovered to her growing delight that the rocks around the gap were loose. She pulled a few out, experimented with the others nearby, and pulled out a few more. She soon found herself with a pile of about nine fair-sized rocks at her side, and a gaping hole large enough for a man to squeeze through. She smiled to herself. Apparently something had slipped by the Bajora after all.

Eeris ducked and peered through the hole. It was the opening of a long, dark tunnel through the thick wall. The light on the other side was dim, but she was sure she spied thick, unforgiving brush and an upward slant that she could only assume was a hill.

_ The hills, _ she thought triumphantly.  _ I’ve reached the hills! _

She started to pull herself through. She was so close. Only a few feet to go, and she would leave her society behind. Her mother and the Steward and her traitorous cousins would all be part of the past, and she could look to the future.

But what future?

Eeris stopped, remembering what her instructor had said about the jagged cliffs beyond the hills. Beyond them, only a long fall to mercilessly crashing waves awaited her. What exactly was she doing? Was this really an escape, or was it merely a suicide attempt? What was better—a life within these insufferable walls, hated by every Bajoran who chanced to cross her path, or death by starvation or drowning in the land beyond?

Eeris backed out of the tunnel and looked back south in the direction of Lohnar. Through the thick haze of the poor sectors, she could see the fuzzy, indistinct silhouette of the residential district, but no farther. She wasn’t even sure where her house was from here.

A footstep crunched near her.

Eeris held her breath and stayed perfectly still, hoping the shadows concealed her.

The footstep crunched again, and she dared to look for its source. For a heart-pounding moment, the figure was invisible through the haze. But then it stepped out from behind a hut. Eeris stiffened, trying not to breathe, as the figure continued toward the candlelight of another nearby hut. Upon further inspection, the figure appeared to be a man, perhaps middle-aged, of moderate weight. His features were indistinct.

_ A beggar, _ she thought.  _ Great, I’ve stumbled upon a beggar. Maybe they didn’t all leave. _

The man walked with purpose, his stride confident, his shoulders held strong. He moved between the huts until he came to one whose candlelight had flickered out. He disappeared inside, and Eeris brushed her hand along the ground, feeling for the tunnel’s opening, wondering if it was safe to make a quick exit. At least she could hide there until this unwelcome stranger left.

The man’s next move put to rest all thoughts of escaping. Eeris saw a candlelight flicker back on in the same hut the man had entered. Then he reappeared, footsteps crunching softly but confidently on the ground. His arms melted closer to the sides of his silhouette, as if he had clasped his hands behind his back. Eeris watched him for a moment longer, wondering what he would do next, but he quickly moved on, disappearing into the darkening haze.

Eeris shook her head in confusion. What had that been all about? Had that hut been his? Why else would he go in to relight the candle? She didn’t understand what his man was doing here, but she realized she couldn’t stick around forever. If there was one person here, maybe there were others. She was bound to be discovered. Maybe she could take her chances on the outside for the time being. She could wait a while, then crawl back through, and then go home.

Seeing no other sensible option, Eeris ducked her head back through the hole and scrunched her body through it like an inchworm. It was dark and wet inside and little droplets fell from the ceiling to splash her face. She closed her eyes and hunched her shoulders, inching along until she could breathe the fresh, unpolluted air of the other side.

Slowly and carefully, she raised herself to her feet and lifted her head to look around. The sky above her was overcast and she could hear the faintest rumble of thunder in the distance. The terrain around her was rugged and slanted gently uphill. In that moment, all thoughts of death’s inevitability fled her mind. She couldn’t see very far over the nearest rise, but she knew that just beyond the crest of that hill, freedom awaited her.

Eeris bent her arm behind her back and trudged forward. There was no turning back now. She had left her people behind, and she was never coming back.

As she stumbled through the brush, her thoughts returned home. It was her father she saw now, his tired wrinkle lines transforming his young face into that of a much older man, his work-glazed eyes glinting with inner intelligence, his hair combed back but ruffling in unruly patches. Eeris smiled to herself, remembering the sound of his gentle voice in her ears. She didn’t notice when tears returned to her eyes and began to flow down her cheeks. Her father was one more person she would never see again. And that, she might just regret.

But her father was a common man. He was trapped within the bounds of the Societal Order. He couldn’t resist authority any more than he could resist the demands of her mother. As much as she loved him, he couldn’t help her. He was one face best forgotten.

Eeris brought her arm back down to her side and let it swing naturally as she hiked through the brush. She reached the top of the first rise and stood as tall as she could, swinging her gaze around to examine the land. It seemed to undulate endlessly, falling and then rising, falling and rising in endless hills beneath the overcast sky. There was no end in sight, no cliffs to be seen. For the first time, Eeris wondered if the cliffs and the crashing waves were a lie. Was it possible freedom did exist for her, somewhere?

Eeris trudged on. She shoved all thoughts of her father from her mind, reasoning that if he knew the chance she had right now, then he would want her to take it. She briefly considered thinking of her mother, but she didn’t want resentment to cloud her first moments of freedom. Even if her freedom only lasted to the end of the hills, even if she did survive to feel the water embrace her before drawing her to its deep, forgotten underworld, she still had this moment. One achievement, one moment of purpose in her life, was all she could ask for. From the beginning, she had never expected to do anything great. One moment when she could follow her heart, when she actually thought she was doing something right, would have to be enough.

She wasn’t sure how long she walked before fatigue began to creep in on her mind, like a slow, inexorable fog gently clouding her vision until she could see no more. She only began to notice it when she stumbled and fell in the brush. She pushed herself back to her feet again, but she wavered this time. She glanced up at the sky, wondering how late it was, but all that greeted her were dark clouds. She wondered if it was going to rain soon. She hoped it wouldn’t. Rain, as she remembered, did not carry the taste of freedom—only the bitter, demanding reminder of desperation in a hopeless situation. It was a feeling that had followed her for as long as she could remember, and only now could she break free of it.

At long last, her foot caught in the brush, and she stumbled when she tried to pull it free. She fell onto her hand and knees in the dirt and noted, oddly enough, that it was wet. Soaked, in fact, as if ready for planting.

She didn’t bother to get up again. Her eyelids were too much weight to hold open. She finally gave in to the natural forces that assailed her, curling up in an empty patch of dirt so that the brushes just barely scraped her sides. She let her eyes fall closed, and then…

Nothing.   
  



	6. Chapter 5

Someone was shaking her shoulder.

Gentle as it was, it roused Eeris from her slumber. She blinked her eyes open, and couldn’t have been more surprised by the sight that greeted her if she had seen a live  _ vermokk _ , drool dripping from its fangs. A man dressed in earth-toned robes crouched near her. He wore an odd chain on his right ear, attached by clamps to the upper and lower edges of his lobe.

“Child?”

At that gentle voice, Eeris bolted upright and scrambled to her feet. The man gathered the folds of his robe around him and rose with her, so that he was once again looking down on her. He was a good foot taller, with brown hair and solemn, dark eyes. He stood with his hands clasped before him, almost disappearing into the sleeves of his robe. Eeris found she could do nothing but gape at him, at this man who shouldn’t have been outside the wall of the Societal Order. He looked quite healthy, not a sign of poverty about him. That meant he didn’t even belong in the poor sectors, let alone in the hills beyond his people. Eeris opened and shut her mouth several times, but she could find no words. Part of her, the more sensible part, wanted to run from this man who she shouldn’t have allowed to see her. But the more instinctual part of her was curious about him.

“Child, are you alright?”

Eeris finally found her voice, barely more than a squeak. “I—I think so.”

The man cocked his head at her. His serene gaze was unnerving. “Now what is a well-dressed young woman like you doing out here in the hills?”

“I could ask the same of you,” Eeris said.

The man chuckled. “I’m sure you could. A fair question, my child. But I’m afraid that’s one I can’t answer.”

“Who are you?” Eeris demanded.

“Someone you’d best forget,” the man said. His voice was so calm, Eeris felt she could lose herself in its gentle tones. “I can escort you back to the wall, if you’d like. You shouldn’t be out here.”

Eeris shook her head. “I didn’t come all the way out there for nothing. I’m not going back.”

“Child,” the man said with a discouraging shake of his head, “there is nothing for you here. You’ll have a better life within the wall, no matter your walk of life. Even if you’re a common citizen.”

Eeris peered at him. Only a common citizen? Granted, that’s what she was now, but the sight of her should at least invoke  _ some _ response in people. Anger, hatred, fear, revulsion…the list went on. This man couldn’t spend much time within the wall at all, if he didn’t know who she was. One thing was for sure: there was no way he could understand what she’d escaped. He didn’t understand what she’d be going back to if she returned. He didn’t know that she’d gotten a Kiran elder killed, or that she’d lost every friend she’d ever had, or that she’d turned her back on the only life she’d ever known, or that she’d  _ failed _ . In everything.

But if he didn’t want her out here, then where else could she go?

“I’m not going back,” she repeated. She hugged herself, shivering against the cold.

The man reached out to gently touch her shoulder. Her left shoulder. The gesture startled her enough to look at him again. There was no disgust in his eyes, only gentle curiosity.

“You must,” he said. “Whatever you’ve escaped, it can never be as terrible as turning your back on society.”

“Then why are you out here?” Eeris asked.

“For reasons I have far too little time to explain in context.”

Eeris shook her head. “Why should I go back?”

“There is nothing for you here,” the man repeated.

“I could dive off the cliffs,” Eeris said, but her voice sounded weak even to her. She didn’t want to give up. She just wanted to get  _ out _ .

The man gave her a concerned smile. “No. The distance is much too far. You must return home.”

Eeris sighed. She still didn’t want to go back, but the man had a point. There wasn’t much here except for the cold and the clouds and the hills. And even the inhabitants of this place didn’t seem to want her. What if it was no better than her society? What if the man was right, and she’d left something behind there—something valuable?

Her father.

She stopped the tears that started from her eyes. She wasn’t going to cry again. At least not in front of this stranger. But maybe she had missed something in her reasoning before—maybe her father was worth staying behind for, after all. Maybe he could even help her. Maybe he could work something out. It would get him in trouble, but by this point, Eeris was tired of caring. Wanting to help her people, and even her father, seemed so pointless.

But she would go back. Eeris looked up into the strange man’s eyes and nodded once, resolutely.

The man smiled. “I hoped you would make that decision.” He offered her his hand, and Eeris took it without thinking.

As they started back over the hills, Eeris decided to try and get some much-needed information out of this man. “Why are you outside the wall?”

“I cannot explain that.”

“Okay, then. How  _ long _ have you been outside the wall?”

“I have always lived outside the wall,” the man said. “I grew up in the huts out here. My parents taught me from a very young age not to discuss our lives with strangers from the inside.”

“And do you know why that is?” Eeris pressed.

“Of course I do,” the man said. “I simply cannot explain. We have lived here for several generations.”

“By choice, or by force?”

“Oh, Prophets, my child! So many questions!”

Eeris rounded on him. “You believe in the Prophets?”

The man stared at her. For the first time since he had found her asleep in the brush, he looked rattled. He swallowed and composed himself, still at a loss for words. “I…I didn’t realize anyone within the wall still knew of the Prophets.”

“We don’t,” Eeris said shortly. “But I’ve studied old scripture. I’m finding it’s the only thing about our first Steward that’s actually kept hidden, which makes it interesting. Most of the time, she’s a legend.”

“The first Steward…” the man murmured.

“You know of her?”

“From my parents.”

Eeris stared at him. “It’s been nine hundred years. Surely they didn’t know her.”

“No…no.” The man shook his head quickly. “You people from the inside aren’t the only ones who hear talk of Kira Nerys. For you, she’s a legend. For us…an old foe of times past.”

Eeris wasn’t sure why a laugh escaped her mouth right then. Perhaps it was the rather refreshing idea of talking to someone who wouldn’t lay on the flattery the moment the first Steward’s name came up.

“But we hold no grudge,” the man added quickly. “Resentment is a useless emotion. It only serves to haunt one’s pagh.”

“Pagh?” Eeris repeated.

The man shook his head. “Never mind. I should not be saying these things. You can’t tell your people about me, child. Among you insiders, we prefer to stay a myth.”

“A  _ myth _ ?” Eeris cried. “I hadn’t even heard a word about you before now!”

“Well, that’s reassuring. I’m glad to hear we’ve finally faded into the past.”

“Did you once live in the poor sectors?” Eeris asked.

“Now, now, child. I really can’t answer questions like that.”

Eeris huffed. “For someone who doesn’t idol-worship Kira Nerys, you’re awfully secretive.”

“Now how does my perception of Kira Nerys affect your expectations for my secretiveness?”

“I’ve just never known anyone who  _ doesn’t _ worship the first Steward,” Eeris shrugged. “Now I finally find someone who doesn’t lather on the flattery, and he won’t even answer my questions.”

The man gave her a curious stare. “You are not like the others, are you?”

Eeris looked down at her feet and didn’t answer.

The man faltered in his stride, reaching an arm out toward her, but he seemed to reconsider as he withdrew his arm and turned forward. They walked a few more paces before he finally stopped and turned to face her. Eeris followed suit, curious as to what was on his mind. She couldn’t have been more startled when he reached out to cover her left ear with his right hand. She took a step back.

The man inclined his head sympathetically. “May I?”

Eeris responded with a questioning stare, unsure what he was asking permission to do.

With a reassuring smile, the man clasped her earlobe between his fingers and squeezed gently, tugging downward. Eeris flinched and closed her eyes. She really didn’t want to lose her ear.

“Is something wrong, child?”

Eeris opened her eyes timidly and found herself looking straight into the man’s soft, comforting gaze. “It’s just…you shouldn’t do that.” Even as she spoke, she had no idea how to explain. “My ear might disappear.”

He must have thought she was joking, because he smiled and tugged again. Eeris winced and concentrated on…on keeping her ear on her head? Had her ear not been held captive, she would have shaken her head incredulously. She had no idea how to control her metamorphic abilities. What in the world could she possibly concentrate on?

“Your pagh is strong,” the man whispered reverently. Eeris found herself drawn into that gentle voice. “It has been many years since a pagh was felt, my child. But I suspect yours is a great deal different from those of your people.”

Eeris’s throat felt constricted. She struggled for breath. “What…what is ‘pagh’?”

“Your life force,” the man said calmly. “Your spirit…”

He closed his eyes for a moment, and Eeris feared she’d lost him. She felt as if the world was spinning out from under her, and the only place of stability was the ground this man held still. And then, suddenly, he opened his eyes again and released Eeris’s ear. The world spun back into place and stopped, solid beneath her feet as if it had never moved at all. She stumbled back, startled.

“I apologize if I’ve frightened you, my child.” The man gave her a self-deprecating smile. “But I sense you are special. I could not resist.”

Eeris nodded weakly, at a loss for words.

The man held out his hand again. Eeris dared not take it, dared not touch him again, but she nonetheless followed him as he turned back towards the wall. He continued to lead her back through the hills at a relatively fast pace. They crashed through the brush, every once in a while tilting their heads to the sky, but the clouds never did clear. They must have been walking for hours by the time the wall finally appeared over the next rise. Finally, they stopped before it, heads craned to see over the top.

The man peered up at the clouds again. “Looks like a storm’s coming, child. You’d best get inside and back home before it starts pouring.”

“It’s held off for this long already,” Eeris said. “I’ll be fine.”

“Ah, but I sense a greater storm,” the man said. He smiled at her. “Or perhaps, you are meant to brave the storm. I, however, cannot decide your path for you.”

Eeris shook her head. “What are you talking about?”

“Best not to listen to me,” the man said. “I’m just a weary outsider. I know little of the life you lead.” He paused. “I’m afraid this is where I must leave you. I cannot enter the society.”

“Why not?” Eeris asked, not expecting an answer.

The man only smiled. Eeris sighed.

“It is night now,” the man said. “You must be careful in the city, child.”

“Why do you keep calling me that?” Eeris asked.

“Go.” The man gestured toward the wall. “Please, go now. I must leave.”

Frowning, Eeris knelt on the ground and slid headfirst through the hole in the wall. It was pitch black inside. Eeris wondered what would greet her in the poor sectors. She wished the tunnel was shorter, so she could see what she would be facing. So she could look before she leapt.

That was no longer an option.

When she reached the other side, a minute or two later, she wondered if the man was still there. And she wondered how he had known where to find the hole in the wall.   
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Bajoran _vermokk_ is courtesy of Carolyn R. Fulton. Thank you!


	7. Chapter 6

Eeris’s father, Kira Jayde, worked in a high-rise office building on the edge of the suburbs, where Lohnar met Hill Province and became a compact and crowded city. It took Eeris until early morning to get there on foot. By the time the sun rose, it was dimmed once again, this time by city smog. She coughed slightly, wishing she still had a sense of smell so she could tell when to hold her breath. She walked down a few streets, found her father’s building number, and pulled open the towering class doors. She crossed the lobby to the elevator and entered the number for her father’s floor. She watched, resting a leg, as the floor numbers ticked by.

So far, she had managed to avoid the morning crowd. Eeris hoped her luck would stay with her and she wouldn’t catch too many stares. She wasn’t afraid of being caught truant from school; she’d already done much worse. She didn’t want to see the look in a commoner’s eyes when they saw her. She didn’t want to see the fear. As long as she didn’t see it, she could pretend it wasn’t there.

The elevator doors finally opened and Eeris stepped out into the empty hallway. After a quick check in both directions revealed nobody coming, she set off down the hallway to her father’s door.

She knew he’d be working—or, at least, she hoped he would be. That he’d worked into the early hours would come as no surprise. Eeris hoped beyond hope that tonight was one of those nights when he’d decided to stay working late. The irony didn’t escape her; only a day ago she’d been wishing he would spend more time at home. It became a mantra in her mind as she made her way down the featureless hall.  _ Please be working, please be working, please be working… _

She reached her father’s door. She was in luck. A glowing light near the handle indicated that his office was occupied. Eeris took a deep breath and knocked twice decisively.

“Come in!”

Eeris pressed down the handle and swung the door open. Her father sat in a swiveling desk chair behind an array of monitors that appeared to be showing live video footage of various parts of Lohnar. Upon further inspection, most weren’t showing Lohnar at all—the ones to his right showed the plains of Rekantha Province; the mountains, oceans, and farmland of Dahkur; the desert province of Musilla; the plains of Ilvian; and finally, the forests of Janitza, Relliketh, and Hendrikspool. To his left, the monitors showed the island of Kran-Tobal, the mountainous desert of Kendra, the farmland and suburbs of Lohnar, and the cities of Hill. Beyond the array of monitors was a row of ceiling-height windows that overlooked the city. Eeris’s father sat with his back to her, his shoulders hunched in fatigue, his fingers clicking away at the computer screen in front of him.

It had never occurred to Eeris to ask her father what he actually  _ did _ for a living. He’d once told her where he worked. But before today, she’d never been inside his office herself. The arrangement of his monitors lent the appearance of surveillance duty, or at least some kind of security. It was a position of relative power, the last position she would have expected to find her father in. She realized that if she asked him to help her, he could easily just turn on her like everyone else had. But she had to believe he would help her. He was all the hope she had left.

Eeris stepped inside and let the door close behind her. “Father?”

He swiveled around at the sound of her voice, his frown of concentration splitting into a delighted beam. “Eeris! What on Bajor are you doing here?”

She leveled him a look. “I wanted to see you.”

He sighed. “We’ve gone over this…”

“You’re never home,” Eeris said.

“I know,” he said. “And I regret that. But—”

“Father, I need you,” she said. She took an impassioned step closer. “Mother and I need you.”

He gave her a sad chuckle. “Eeris, you have your role as Steward to keep you occupied.”

“Not anymore,” she said.

For the first time, he looked concerned. “What do you mean?”

“Ugh!” Eeris groaned. “Did she seriously not tell you?”

“Did who not tell me what?”

“Mother! Did she not tell you?”

He sighed. “I guess she didn’t.”

Eeris groaned again, tossing up her arm. “Father, why can’t you two just get along? I know you don’t like the way she exploits the Steward role to her own ends, but still!”

“Well, why don’t you tell me?”

Eeris sighed and dropped her hand. “The inauguration happened,” she said. “I refused the ring.”

She decided not to tell her father what had really happened. That was a conversation for another time—a time when she herself was more certain of what had happened. All she knew was that her finger had morphed away, and it was still gone.

Her father sighed and covered his eyes. “Eeris…please. You’re giving your mother gray hairs.”

“Oh, I’m sure she’ll manage. She didn’t have to give up her throne. She doesn’t care about me anyway,” Eeris said.

Her father gave her a pointed look. “Don’t speak disrespectfully of your mother.”

“Why not?” Eeris asked. “It’s true.”

Another sigh. “ _ Please _ , Eeris. This…this fighting between the two of you…I can’t take it.”

“Neither can I!” Eeris said. “I want to get out of here. Help me, Father, please!”

“This is why I stay away.”

“You’ve abandoned us!” Eeris cried. “Help me now. I need you!”

A long pause. Then he sighed again and held his arms open. “Come here.”

Eeris flew into his lap. It had been years since she’d been able to fit, but she could still make it work. She wrapped her arms around him and buried her head against his sternum, listening to the rhythmic pounding of his heart. Her father drew his arms around her, holding her close, rocking her gently to a beat only they could hear.

“I went outside the wall,” Eeris suddenly said.

The rocking stopped. Her father went as stiff as a stone. Only then did she realize what an outrageous thing she had just said.

“You… _ what _ ?” he finally managed, his voice barely a whisper.

“You heard me,” Eeris said. She lifted her head so she could see his eyes. “I went outside the wall last night. I just got back today. I came straight here. I knew you’d help me.”

“Eeris, I can’t. You know I can’t.”

“Sure you can.”

“No, I can’t.”

“Actually, there’s something I want to ask you.”

He sighed. “Go ahead.”

Eeris looked him straight in the eye, watching for his reaction. “I explored the hills beyond the wall.”

He remained silent.

“They kept going on forever,” she continued, hoping to draw him out. This wasn’t going to get any easier for her if he was going to stay so quiet. “I was a bit surprised. I mean, my Steward instructor likes to say all the time that the hills end in cliffs after a short distance. And then you careen right over them and into the ocean. But I never even saw the cliffs. Not even in the distance.”

“Curious,” was all he said.

She went on. “And do you know who I met out there?”

His brow furrowed. “Who?”

“I actually have no idea,” Eeris said, frowning. “He wore an excess of robes I’ve never seen anywhere in Lohnar, and there was a chain hanging from his ear. And his voice…it was the calmest, most serene I’ve ever heard.” She shook herself. “But the weirdest thing about him was that he shouldn’t have been very well off, if he was living out there. But he didn’t seem like that. He wasn’t underweight or anything, he looked  _ healthy _ . He couldn’t have been from the poor sectors, but somehow he knew where the, uh…”

She trailed off. She wasn’t sure if she should tell her father about the opening in the wall.

“Where the…what?”

She forged ahead quickly. “Where the hole was in the wall. I moved a couple of loose rocks. That’s how I was able to squeeze through.”

Her father gazed distantly over her shoulder. “A hole in the wall, you say?”

She nodded. “Yes. But that’s not even the craziest part. Father, there wasn’t a soul around in the poor sectors. Well, except for…”

“Of course there are people in the poor sectors.” Her father nodded quickly. “It must have been chance that you didn’t see any of them.”

“Yes, but—”

“No buts. And if they ever find you there, I will hear about it.”

She paused. Was that a threat? Her father never threatened. For that matter, he was never  _ around _ to threaten, but when he  _ was _ home, he was as quiet as a mouse. She wondered if he was right about the poor sectors’ population. Maybe she had just been lucky not to run into anyone. But that still begged the question—where were they? She hadn’t seen anyone around, save for that one man in the murk. And who had made the hole in the wall?

“Eeris,” her father said, “how did you even manage to get past the stench? That’s enough to put most any Bajoran out of commission.”

“Well, I…” Eeris faltered. “I’ve lost my sense of smell, Father.”

His gaze snapped up and met hers. His eyes shone with concern. “You  _ what _ ?”

“You know,” she said, irritated. “My weird abilities. First my hair and eye color, and now my finger and my arm and…everything else.”

His eyes widened. “Eeris, why didn’t you come to me sooner? What happened to your arm and your…what else?”

Sighing, Eeris told her father about the events in her life that he’d missed over the past few days. More than ever, she wished he was home more often.

Her father let out a worried chuckle. “I’d say, Eeris, that you are evolving into quite the intriguing creature.”

She sighed again and lowered her head back to his chest. “Father, I want to know who that man is. The one I met in the hills.”

“And how to you propose to find that out?”

Eeris didn’t answer right away. She knew why she had sought out her father. Maybe he couldn’t do much to find her a place in society again; no one could do that, after all she’d done. But maybe he could help her learn more about that man. He had access to a large database that would surely have answers to her questions. But she hesitated to ask him. Through Steward school, she knew everything she was supposed to know about the land beyond the Societal Order. She had no right to ask her father to help her learn more.

She steeled herself. “I’d like to use your computer interface.”

Her father pulled back to get a better look at her. “My  _ work _ interface?”

She cringed guiltily. “Yes.”

“Eeris, you know that interface is tied to my professional record. If anyone finds out…”

“I know,” Eeris said. “They’d never believe it, coming from you. That’s why it’s the best option.”

“Eeris! I could lose my job!”

“No! Not if—”

“Eeris!” He held up a hand to stop her. “The answer is no. I won’t have my professional integrity threatened—”

“Your professional integrity?” she retorted. “It’s always about your  _ professional integrity _ .”

“I don’t like your tone, young lady.”

“And don’t you dare  _ young lady _ me!” Eeris said. “You lost the right to do that when you  _ abandoned _ me!”

“I didn’t—”

“Father!” She was shouting, but she didn’t care. “Don’t you get it? You’re never home. You’re never there when we need you. When you’re there, everything’s better. The tension’s gone, Mother doesn’t yell at me so much, there isn’t so much silence around the breakfast table—Father, you can’t just walk out on us! Show me, just this once, that your job isn’t more important to you than us!”

“Eeris, if I do what you’re asking me of me, I could be fired.”

“I know that,” Eeris said. She dashed her hand across her face, stubbornly wiping away her tears. “And you know what? Right now, I don’t care!”

“I don’t understand,” her father said. “Why is this so important to you? What’s so special about this man?”

“He got out,” Eeris said. “He’s my ticket out of here. I need to find out who he is.”

“Eeris…”

She lifted her head and placed her hand on his shoulder. She squeezed hard. She looked him in the eye, and he met her gaze. She searched those chocolate depths for any sign of fatherly love. Real love.

“Father, do you love me?” she asked.

His expression crumpled. He looked on the verge of tears.

“Of course I do,” he whispered.

“Then show me that,” she said. “ _ Please _ .”

For a long time, he said nothing. Eeris held her breath. He had to say yes. He had to. If he didn’t, she didn’t know who she could possibly turn to. If he wasn’t on her side, then who was?

Finally, he sighed. “I don’t like this, Eeris. Can’t you just step in my shoes for once? Can’t you see that every day, as I watch you face off Bajor and all that it stands for, I don’t know what to do with you?”

“ _ Help me, Father, _ ” she said.

His hands came up to grip her shoulders. As he looked into her eyes, he looked more tired than she had ever seen him. His hair was ragged, his eyes were bloodshot, and his wrinkle lines aged him by at least twenty years. His jaw was set in concentration and his lips trembled.

Eeris felt a pang of sorrow for him. But she didn’t back down.

“Alright,” he finally sighed. “Alright, Eeris, if that’s what I have to do to make you happy. If that’s how I can pay for all the time I’m gone…”

Eeris’s chest flooded with relief. Her heart stopped pounding. She leaned into his arms and hugged him gratefully. “Thanks, Father. That means a lot to me.”

He held her tightly against him, as if he feared she would disappear if he let go. Eeris stayed in his arms for a long time, listening to his steady breathing. She closed her eyes and settled her chin against his shoulder, letting him gently rock her.

He pushed her away after what felt like an eternity. “Eeris, be careful.”

She grinned. “You know me.”

He just nodded, his eyes bespeaking of little hope. He gestured to the spare chair in his office, the one next to the computer interface across the room. Eeris sprang off his lap and settled herself in the other chair. She turned the interface on and set up a search for references to people outside the Societal Order. The search was narrow; there were not many people out there to choose from.

The information loaded after only a brief hesitation. As Eeris’s eyes traveled down the screen, they widened in shock.

Kira Nerys must have been one hell of a jerk.   
  



	8. Chapter 7

Eeris tore at breakneck speed through the poor sectors, stopping only when she reached the wall. She hurriedly removed the rocks from the tunnel’s entrance and scrambled through it, skin chafing against the rough walls in her haste to cross through. Finally, she stumbled up the slant of the first hill. The clouds had opened a little above her, letting the sun shine through. It cast a pleasant warmth across her cheeks and lit her path in a beautiful golden glow. She stumbled through the brush, her arm flying in all directions as she ran farther into the hills than she had before. Her muscles ached, but she paid them no mind. She kept her gaze locked resolutely on the crest of the farthest hill. Over one of these rises, she knew she’d find what she was looking for.

She climbed the next hill and peered down into the valley below. Nothing. She raced up the next rise.  _ Any minute now. _ And then, there it was, sprawled out before her: a cluster of straw huts, built together so closely she could barely tell where one ended and the next began. As she neared them, the landscape began to flatten out, the hills no longer so steep and so rolling. They began to undulate softly, and Eeris found she could run without fear of losing sight of the huts ahead. For a long, endless moment, she was afraid she’d never reach them—and then, there they were before her, waiting with golden-brown straw and open windows.

Eeris slowed to a jog, and then to a walk, as she drew within a few meters. The cluster was larger than it had appeared from a distance. She looked around for the man who had walked her back to the wall the night before, but he was nowhere to be seen.

She took a deep breath and knocked on the first door.

Almost immediately, it opened. She found herself standing before a familiar, sage face.

She jumped back, startled. “There you are!”

The man inclined his head toward her. “Please, come in. You’ve come this far. I’ll not have you disappointed.”

Eeris stepped inside and let him close the door behind her. “I’m sorry, I know you didn’t want me here. It’s just, I found out who you are.”

“Oh?” He frowned. “I didn’t realize people from the Societal Order were privy to that information.”

“We’re not,” Eeris said. “Not usually. But when you’ve been looking for loopholes in your society’s security and customs all your life, you get good at finding the information you want. Even when it’s hidden.”

“I’m curious, then,” the man said. “Who do you think I am?”

“You’re a ranjen from the old Bajoran religious order,” Eeris said. “The same religious order that was disbanded about nine hundred years ago by Kira Nerys. You assist a vedek. And according to what I found, you still have some very precious artifacts in storage.”

The ranjen folded his arms. “Tell me, what is your interest in my people and me?”

“I’d like to see your artifacts.”

She knew, in fact, what these “artifacts” were. The records of them were patchy at best, but the information existed nonetheless. She knew that these religious scholars would be able to give her the answers she desired. Or, if not answers, they would at least set her on the right path. And that was an opportunity Eeris would not pass up.

“So you seek the Prophets,” the ranjen said. “Perhaps Vedek Yaije can assist you.”

Eeris’s face fell. “Not you?”

He smiled weakly. “I am not yet fluent in matters of the artifacts. It would be wisest for you to consult a vedek.”

“If you say so,” Eeris said. “Take me to see her, then.”

The ranjen bowed his head. “Wait here, child. I’ll return in a moment.”

He retreated out a side doorway and Eeris was left alone in the tiny, straw-walled entryway. It gave her a moment to contemplate what she was doing here. What business had she to barge into Bajor’s last remaining religious stronghold and demand answers to her questions? She had stepped beyond the bounds of courtesy and kindness. Her transgressions against her society—social and legal alike—were compounding by the minute. She needed to stop now, before she reached the point of no return. She needed to stop before she could no longer choose to turn back.

But perhaps she’d traveled too far to be forgiven. She was here, now. The so-called “tears of the Prophets” she had read about would surely tell her what to do next. She could only hope that the Prophets wouldn’t toss her back among her people and leave her to tread water. But Eeris was tired of running, even more than she was tired of obeying. She didn’t want a life of constant rebellion—she wanted a life of  _ her own _ . If she was fated to stay here on Bajor forever, then she would be content in the knowledge that she had rebelled as hard as she could. Her victory would be these first few hours of success and freedom. If society wanted her punished, if society threw her out, then she would sooner do what she was told than accept the Steward. She would live out whatever years she had left knowing that she had done her best. And if her punishment was death, then she would voluntarily dive straight off the border cliffs if she had to.

Assuming, that was, that they actually existed.

A few minutes later, the door swung open gently and a woman Eeris assumed was Vedek Yaije entered, the ranjen trailing along at her side. The vedek had sand-colored hair and kind, soft, blue eyes. She wore a combination of red and orange, topped with an odd hat that Eeris could only assume went with her rank. She leveled her serene gaze at Eeris as she approached, hands folded and disappearing within the sleeves of her robe.

“Child,” she said calmly, “I’m told you request the wisdom of the orb.”

“Please,” Eeris said.

The vedek nodded. “I must warn you that orb experiences can be very disorienting.”

“I’ll take that chance,” Eeris said.

The vedek was silent for a moment. Finally, she said, “Very well, child.” With a sharp tug, she tore a strip of cloth from the hem of her robe. “If you will allow yourself to be blindfolded.”

Eeris wasn’t pleased with the prospect of losing yet another of her senses, even temporarily, but she stood still while the vedek tied the blindfold across her eyes.

“My apologies, child, but I am not comfortable showing the location of the orb to an outsider.”

“I read that you’ve got a bunch of orbs here,” Eeris said. “Ten, right?”

The vedek said nothing. One hand on the small of her back, she guided Eeris along. They paused for a moment and Eeris heard a door close behind them. Then the vedek’s hand was once again pressing against her back. They continued forward.

“Have you read much on the nature of the orbs, child?” the vedek finally asked.

“All I know is that the Prophets speak through them,” Eeris said. “I’ve wanted to speak to the Prophets for as long as I can remember. My people don’t believe in them anymore, but…I guess I do. There isn’t much else for me.”

“I am sorry, my child.” The vedek’s voice was sad. “The Prophets have been dead for nearly nine hundred years.”

“Dead? But—how can a god be dead?”

“That answer still eludes the wisest of us. All we know is, an alien race known as the Founders released a weapon that exterminated them,” the vedek said. “The Celestial Temple winked out of our skies, trapping the Emissary inside. We can only hope that his once-corporeal nature saved his life.” She paused. “He has not spoken for nearly nine hundred years. But perhaps he will choose to speak to you through the orb.”

“I didn’t know of any Emissary,” Eeris mused.

“And here we are,” the vedek said.

She lifted the blindfold. After a moment of disorientation, Eeris found that she was inside another straw hut. This one was a bit smaller than the first. The most obvious difference was the ark resting atop a wooden podium in the center of the room.

Eeris took a step toward it, her voice suddenly and inexplicably sucked away. “Is that…” She swallowed. “…the orb?”

“The Orb of Time,” the vedek said. She approached the ark and opened its doors. “Kneel before it, child, and await whatever will come.”

Curious and awed, Eeris followed instructions for quite possibly the first time in her life. She dropped to her knees before the object that seemed to hover within its container. It might have been a large jewel, possibly a diamond, if it had not seemed to be more light than diamond. It was a glowing, blue hourglass, seemingly suspended from nothing. With a flash of light, a white haze seemed to reach out and envelope her, and she suddenly found herself back in the hills beyond the wall. Her skin felt cold and wet and she shivered. A thundercloud had burst and it was finally raining.

Eeris knew, in some logical corner of her mind, that the sensible thing to do was to find shelter. But some dream-force unknown to her took possession of her limbs, and she found herself taking off in a direction that she sensed would take her right past the monastery’s huts. She moved slowly at first, but she began to feel a gnawing sense of urgency that drove her legs faster. She tore through the brush and bounded over the hills, only one thought repeating over and over in her mind. It came as loudly as if someone had shouted it, and she knew immediately that it, and not shelter, needed to be her first priority.

_ The metamorph…the metamorph…the metamorph… _

Oddly enough, she didn’t think she was referring to herself. Rather, there was another metamorph, as separate from his kind as she was, who she needed to find. She could sense herself drawing closer not to shelter, but to the metamorph she was supposed to meet. He took precedence over everything else. Bajor didn’t matter. The Steward didn’t matter. Her society, her mother, her father, none of them mattered. All that mattered was the metamorph. He would protect her. He could help her.

Over the next rise, she spotted him, and a strange sound issued from her mouth— “ _ Odo! _ ” It must have been his name, but she didn’t know how she could possibly know it. He didn’t seem to hear her. He was dressed in a strange, hard-edged beige suit, the arms a slightly darker shade than the rest of the garment, and was walking toward the huts. He had the oddest face she had ever seen, smoothed over unnaturally and yielding no imperfections or even stubble. The result of an electrical accident, perhaps? Or had he been caught in some sort of machine? What could explain such a flat and featureless face, like a blank wax mask?

No, she realized. That wasn’t mutilation. Mutilation would look a whole lot more…destroyed. Perhaps not bloody, but scarred. Imperfect. This was just the way the man was. Eeris drew a breath of anticipation at the same moment that fear lodged in her gut. And she’d thought  _ she _ was alien.

But he was a metamorph, just like her. If anyone could help her, he could. The dream-force set aside her fear and set her on an intercept course. She was just beginning to near thim when thunder rumbled overhead. Lightning flashed. Bolts struck the ground in every direction. Eeris swiveled her head, tried to make out the metamorph in the gloom of the rain—and there he was! She called out his name, but it was lost on the wind. She dove toward him, only to stop short when lightning struck inches from her nose. She shrieked and screamed his name, but again, her words were lost in the storm.

He saw her then. His mouth fell agape, though whether in horror or surprise, she couldn’t tell. His blue eyes sparkled with some intense emotion that could have been anything from sympathy and concern to white-hot rage. In an instant, he ran to her. He pulled her to the ground and tried to shield her with his body. Eeris fought against him, limbs thrashing as wildly as the storm. She didn’t trust him. But as hard as she fought, his strength was relentless. He didn’t let her go.

She had just escaped his clutches when he reached out blindly and caught her hand. He whipped her body back to the ground and held her there. He was inhumanly strong. She struggled against him, but his grip never yielded. He held her down for some time before she began to sense that his attention had drifted elsewhere.

“Captain!” he growled vehemently, his voice rough as sandpaper. Eeris flinched away. “Are you responsible for this?”

“Not for her clouded path, no,” a deep voice replied. “But for her continued struggle? It’s possible.”

Lightning flashed somewhere around them.

“I hope you realize what’s happening!” the metamorph growled.

A sigh. “Let’s talk inside, shall we?”

The lightning ceased. Even the rain slowed to a gentle patter and vanished. Eeris blinked as the metamorph carefully helped her to her feet. She examined him from head to toe. The look in his deep-set eyes was inscrutable. He seemed to look out on her from behind a mask of mystery and caution. Eeris shrank under his gaze and suppressed a shiver. It wasn’t that his look was particularly frightening, he was just…so  _ other _ . So alien.

And yet, none of this was real. The Emissary—not the Prophets, she remembered—had created this scene and had sent this metamorph to help her. Whether or not she trusted this man didn’t matter. He was the one with the answers. If she wanted to figure out what was wrong with her, then he was the one she had to find.

And then, suddenly, he wavered before her. Eeris’s mouth formed the metamorph’s name, to no avail. White light flooded her surroundings and drowned out every hint of color. And then she found herself standing in a broad, poorly lit atrium. The space around her was profoundly empty, not a soul in sight. It was man-made and alien. In the windows overhead, stars twinkled amid black emptiness. It was far too large for one metamorphic Bajoran girl.

Suddenly, she heard the clank of machinery behind her and she turned around. A red, gear-shaped door was rolling open and through it emerged a…man. He was definitely not a Bajoran. He had a pattern of spots down either side of his forehead, disappearing under his black shirt collar. His red hair was combed back over his head in wavy swirls that seemed eager to escape their loose style. His eyes were bright green. But despite his outstanding appearance, he was of moderate height and an average build. And he wasn’t a man, not really—he couldn’t be older than his early twenties. He had a luggage sack slung over his shoulder and he walked into the atrium at a pace so casual it was as if he owned the place.

The importance of this character wasn’t nearly so obvious as that of the metamorph, the one called Odo. But Eeris intended to find out just why she was to meet this new alien. She strode toward him confidently and when she was within earshot, she decided to get his attention.

“Sir?” she called out.

The man turned around and spotted her. His brow furrowed curiously. “Yes?”

Now that she had begun, she was at a loss for how to continue. After a moment of awkward silence, she remembered that this wasn’t real. She could use any means she wanted to find out what was going on.

“What is this place?” she asked, gesturing expansively at the atrium.

“Ha! Hasn’t been more than an obscure trading post for nine hundred years,” the man said. “Bit too close to Bajor for comfort, but it’s one of the places where I dock my ship. That answer your question?”

“You have a ship?” Eeris gasped.

It was suddenly abundantly clear why the orb was showing her this man. She wasn’t entirely sure why  _ this _ guy in particular was to be her pilot—surely there were plenty of other people in the galaxy with ships of their own—but this man had to be her passage away from Bajor. What else could he be doing here, in her orb vision? He was her ticket to freedom!

“Yeah, I have a ship.” The man set a hand on his hip. “That a surprise?”

“No, just useful,” Eeris said thoughtfully. “What’s the name of this trading post?”

“Deep Space Nine,” the man said. “Why?”

“No reason,” Eeris said. Now that she knew this was Deep Space Nine, escaping Bajor would be relatively easy. This was the closest station to Bajor. Her mother had already promised her transportation off the planet, if she so decided. All she needed to do was  _ go _ .

The man started walking away.

“Wait!” Eeris dashed to catch up to him. There was one more thing she needed to know. “What’s your name?”

He turned back to her. And then he grinned. It was an easy, comfortable grin that lit his eyes and softened his face. Eeris immediately trusted him.

“Miro Dax, at your service,” he replied.

Light flashed around her. All too soon, Eeris found herself back in the vedek’s straw hut, her knees sore from being pressed to the ground. The orb hovered before her, bright and wise and all-knowing. She pressed a hand to her pounding heart and tried to catch her breath.

The vedek leaned around her to shut the doors of the ark. “Well, my child. How do you feel?”

“I feel,” Eeris said with conviction, “that it’s time I got off this planet, once and for all.”   
  



	9. Chapter 8

Her mother bolted from her armchair. “Eeris! Have you lost your mind?”

“I find myself remarkably clearheaded!” Eeris said. “You promised me you’d arrange for my transportation off the planet. I only need to get to Deep Space Nine. I have a plan for how to get from there.”

“Just because some orb put you in some induced sleep where you dreamed about meeting some guy called Dax—”

“Don’t trivialize my orb vision, Mother!” Eeris cried. “They used to be an important part of our culture, you know!”

“Well, they aren’t anymore! How did you learn about these things, anyway?”

Eeris said nothing.

Her mother shook her head. “When I told you I’d arrange for your transportation, I didn’t expect you to throw together a half-brained plan so quickly! But then, I suppose it shouldn’t surprise me, after your recent behavior!”

“You promised me, Mother,” Eeris said. “I hope you’re not going to break that promise.”

“Eeris…” her mother began and stopped, tossing up her hands. She sighed and dropped back into her chair. She spoke slowly, her fury evident just below the surface. “Eeris, I don’t understand why you want to leave Bajor. Stay behind, with me, and I’ll be there for you. I’ll help you. Please. We can figure this out. You said so yourself, though not in so many words.”

Eeris sighed. “No. It’s too late for that.”

“It’s never too late for a mother to help her daughter.”

“It is this time,” Eeris said. “Mother, all my life, you’ve done nothing but disregard my wishes. Just a few minutes ago you trivialized something that was important to me. All you care about is that I stick around and follow my destiny. Well, did it ever occur to you that I don’t  _ want _ my destiny? I want my own life!”

“Eeris, on Bajor, your destiny is your only choice.”

“And there you go again,” Eeris said. “Mother, if you don’t let me leave, you might as well call in the guards and have me executed right now.”

“I can’t believe you’re pouting over something this serious.”

“I’m not pouting!” Eeris said. “Everywhere I step, Mother, I run into someone who knows what I’ve done and hates me for it! There’s no one on Bajor who hasn’t heard the news by now! I got a Kiran elder killed. I ditched school. I turned my back on all of Bajor! How can I ever be the Steward you want me to be when everyone knows I’ve disrespected society every chance I’ve had? And that’s not even the worst of it. My people are  _ disgusted _ with me, and not just for what I’ve done. They can’t see past the stump of my arm. When they look at it, they don’t just see a missing arm, they see my defiance and that’s not something they’re gonna forget. Not when what I  _ look _ like is a constant reminder! Mother, I can’t see the High Council wanting to keep me around much longer. They’ll tolerate my presence until after the next Steward gets inaugurated, and then it’ll be straight to the poor sectors for me. And that’s if they  _ don’t _ label me as a murderer and execute me. But either way, I’m not going to be alive for long.”

She wiped her tears brutally away and looked straight up into her mother’s eyes.

“Please, Mother. I’ll never ask anything else of you again. Look, I was prepared to accept the consequences. If the orb had told me nothing, I would have surrendered. I would have told myself that at least I tried, and I would have let the High Council do with me as they pleased. But I don’t have to bow to their demands. I can  _ escape _ this place. Please, get me to Deep Space Nine. The Emissary wants me to go there. It’s my only chance. All you have to do is get me off Bajor. After that, I can handle my own life.”

Her mother sighed. Sadness crinkled her eyes as she reached over and cupped Eeris’s cheek in one hand. “None of this needed to happen, my girl. If you had just become the Steward—”

“But I didn’t,” Eeris said. “Now, what are you going to do about it? Keep me here, and squash my hopes? Or set me free?”

Her mother closed her eyes. She leaned back on the couch and let out a long, shuddering breath of defeat.

“Very well,” she said. “I’ll get you to Deep Space Nine. But after that, there’s nothing I can do.”

And that was how Eeris found herself on board a Bajoran transport, watching out the window as Bajor grew tinier and tinier until it was but a tiny speck in the emptiness of space. As soon as Bajor was out of sight, she watched ahead for the trading post of Deep Space Nine. She hadn’t done any research on the station itself, so she didn’t know what it would look like. She only knew that her transport would stop there first and she would embark on the journey of a lifetime.

She felt no regret about leaving Bajor behind. It seemed right. She already missed her father terribly, though, so she tried not to think of him. She knew there was little chance she’d ever see him again. But she was surprised that, when her mother’s image surfaced in her mind, no scolding words formed on those hard lips and in those cold eyes—instead, she thought of her mother with an odd twinge of gratitude. Just hours ago, she had held Eeris’s fate in her hands. Without so much as a thought, she could have withheld freedom. But Eeris was sitting on a transport right now, flying away to explore the galaxy, leaving the Steward behind forever.

There was no one else on the planet she would miss. The ranjen and the vedek, maybe, but she hadn’t gotten to know them. She’d probably forget about them entirely once her adventure began. No, she wasn’t going to miss anyone on the planet much, Eeris decided. And she was going to miss Bajor and its backwards traditions even less.

Out the window, she spied a dark, round monstrosity that she could only assume was the station. It was composed of two ring structures that encircled a central hub. Six spires, three on top and three on bottom, curved up from the outer ring like forbidding claws. The station’s many windows glinted dimly, a sharp contrast to the shadows that plunged it into the night. Eeris’s eyes locked, hypnotized, on the hideous creation.

The transport drew ever closer, passing high over those claw-like spires and staring down into the central core. For a brief, terrifying moment, the spires looked like fingers reaching up to grab her. And then they passed over the station, swung around to face it, and docked on the outer ring.

Eeris fell into step with the other disembarking passengers, shouldering her bag and trying not to jostle the line. They passed through an airlock and into the darkness of the atrium beyond.

Eeris couldn’t resist looking around. The ceiling above her was at least two stories high, and even then, the sheer height of each individual floor made it much taller altogether. Unlike in her orb vision, the thoroughfare was crowded with bustling Bajorans. Eeris scanned the faces, searching for Miro Dax.

She spotted a docking schedule on the wall nearby and checked it. Scanning, she found Miro Dax’s name near the middle of the screen. It listed him as the owner of the  _ Challenger _ , set to dock at 11:30 hours. She checked the nearest chronometer and released the breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding, sending a silent prayer of thanks up to the Emissary. She’d come just in time! She searched the airlocks lining the outer wall for the one flashing his ship’s name. When she spotted it, she took off for it. And then the airlock doors rolled open. Standing there at the entrance to the atrium was the man from her vision.

He was just the way the Emissary had shown her: early twenties, bright red hair and striking green eyes, and a smile that seemed to come naturally. But he looked so much more  _ real _ now, standing before her, head turning slightly as he surveyed the activity of the atrium. After a moment’s pause, he adjusted his bag more securely on his shoulder and set off down the thoroughfare.

“Miro Dax!” Eeris cried without thinking. She dashed toward him.

He stopped and looked at her, surprised. “Can I help you?”

“Hi, my name’s Eeris,” she said. “I heard you had a private ship.”

Miro Dax glanced over his shoulder at the airlock. “Yeah, the  _ Challenger _ . What of her?”

“I…uh…I’d like to borrow your services, if you don’t mind,” Eeris said. “I’m trying to get away from Bajor, and I think I’m supposed to find some other metamorph, and in my vision you were there with your ship and I think I’m supposed to use it for my transportation…”

She trailed off. Miro was staring at her as if she’d grown a second head.  _ Well, _ Eeris thought gloomily,  _ maybe that’ll be my next trick. _

“Look, kid,” Miro said, “if you want a hair-raising ride across the galaxy, then just say so. There’s no doubt I’m your best candidate.”

Eeris blinked. “ _ Kid _ ? You’re not that much older than me.”

Miro gave her a look. “Please. Twelve hundred years old over here, okay? You’re a kid to me.”

“Geez,” Eeris said, shaking her head. “You’re serious about the ride?”

“Course I’m serious,” Miro said. “What’d you say your name was?”

“Eeris,” she said.

Miro peered closer at her. “That name sounds…don’t tell me…” He suddenly snapped his fingers. “I’ve got it! Bajoran!”

“To my detriment,” Eeris replied.

Miro squinted at her. “Yup, the nose ridges should’ve given you away. I hope you’re not one of those Steward worshippers, because frankly, I don’t have time for that nonsense.”

“Not at all,” Eeris said. “I’m trying to escape the Societal Order  _ because _ I don’t want anything to do with the Steward.”

He gave her a discerning look. “So I’m not gonna hear any praises for the first Steward from you? Or any other Steward, for that matter?”

Eeris frowned. “No, of course not, why—?”

“Great!” He grinned. “That’s quite a relief. Why don’t you tag along while I drop off my stuff? I could use the company.”

Surprised, Eeris fell into step beside him as he headed off into the atrium.

“You know, I don’t think you could’ve chosen anyone better to explore with,” he said. “I make a living off riding the waves the universe throws at me like one of those surfers back on Earth. If it means adventure, I’ll do it. And it’s a fine time for it, too. I don’t think the galaxy’s ready for a whole troupe of daring adventurers like myself, but with all these border disputes going on nowadays, and heck, even the resurgence of the Cardassians, the waves I get are pretty darn tall.” He grinned and looked at her. “Sound about what you were looking for?”

“Sounds fantastic,” Eeris said. “You said something about making a living off this?”

“Oh, yeah, I usually stop by the planets I come across, wherever it’s legal,” Miro said. “I pick up little trinkets, odd ends, doodads…anything you can name, I’ve got at some time or another. Miscellaneous ship parts, exotic plants, rare spices—I guarantee you someone in the galaxy wants it and will pay you a reasonable price for it. I lived off collector’s items back on Trill, and that’s how I got my ship, no questions asked. I swear there’s always something wrong with her. The warp drive’s at minimum, but I’ve got a repair crew on it while I’m here.” He frowned slightly. “I just hope trinkets will pay for it.”

“How many litas do your trinkets make?” Eeris asked.

“ _ Litas _ ?” he repeated. “Fate, kid, you’ve been living on Bajor for too long! You won’t find litas anywhere else in the galaxy. Out here, we deal in latinum. Gold-pressed.”

“Well, then, how many latinums do your trinkets make?” Eeris asked.

“How  _ much _ latinum,” Miro corrected. “A couple hundred strips, usually. If I’m lucky, I can get a bar or more. And that’s a lot, kid, You can buy a ship with a couple hundred bars.”

“How much was yours?” Eeris asked.

“Oh, about fifty bars,” Miro said. “But she was on sale, and besides, I got her in a rather cheap market. Probably why she’s always breaking down on me. I hope you didn’t want a smooth ride, because I can’t give you one.”

Eeris smiled. “This trip wouldn’t be very interesting without a few bumps along the way, would it?”

“Exactly!” Miro said, grinning. “I like you, kid, I really do. Not afraid to face trouble in the mouth!”

“I’ve been doing that my whole life,” Eeris said, doing her best to ignore what was apparently her new nickname. “I’m used to it.”

Miro shook his head in amusement. “Weirdest Bajoran I’ve ever heard of, but I like you.” He paused. “So, what inspired you to start on this half-brained trip? I know my lifestyle doesn’t appeal to most.”

“Well,” Eeris said, “I’m trying to find someone. Someone who can morph.”

Miro’s gaze darkened a little. “Then you better hope you can find someone like that along the way, kid, ‘cause I’m not going within ten parsecs of the Founders.”

The word reminded Eeris of the vedek’s remark. “Weren’t they the ones who…killed the Prophets?”

Miro looked at her, and for the first time since they’d started talking, the smile dropped completely off his face. “Yes, Eeris, they were. It was a well-calculated move on their part, and it cost the stability of the galaxy.” He kept walking, eyes forward, and Eeris had to run to keep up with him. “The Prophets always said they were ‘of Bajor,’ but I swear they were of the whole galaxy. It’s like they were the fulcrum of a teeter-totter. They held order and peace on one side, galactic destruction on the other.” He held up his palms to demonstrate. “And the moment they left us, the galaxy was doomed.” He sighed. “That was nine hundred years ago, kid, and things just haven’t been the same since.”

Something about the way he said it bothered Eeris. “You say that almost as if you remember,” she whispered. “Almost as if…you were there.”

“I’m a Trill,” he said. “We remember. It’s one of the unfortunate side effects of being joined.”

“I’m…not sure I understand,” Eeris said.

“Fate, kid, what does that High Council of yours tell you these days?” Miro cried. “You’re even more isolated than I thought you were! Haven’t even heard of a Trill!” He shook his head. “I’m a joined species, Eeris.”

“Joined?” Eeris asked.

Miro gaped at her. “I can’t believe this. I seriously can’t believe this. The Bajorans have done it again! I always knew they were a backwards people, prizing their superstitions over common sense, but they continue to surprise me with their sheer idiocy. Now how do they expect to ever get anything done, if they don’t let their people know what goes on outside?”

“We know about Ferengi,” Eeris said, thinking of her cousins’ gossiping.

Miro tossed his hands in the air. “Not much better! They’re more backwards than you are. But whatever. I’ll tell you what you want to know. I’m the twentieth host of the Dax symbiont, a wormlike creature that resides in my belly. I’ve lived through war and peace alike…border disputes…raising a family, living alone…you name it, I’ve done it. My first host was a senator, my fifth was a shuttle pilot. My eighth, Jadzia, was a Starfleet science officer, and my ninth, Ezri, was a Starfleet counselor. Me, though, I’ve had enough of Starfleet. Too treacherous. I’ve steered clear of it in my wanderings.”

“You’re the twentieth host?” Eeris asked. “You’re not really twelve hundred years old, then, are you?”

Miro glanced at her. “Feels like it.”

“So you remember the lives of your previous hosts?”

“That’s right, I do,” Miro said. “So I suppose you can say I’ve lived through these past nine hundred years of border conflicts. Jadzia spent six years here on Deep Space Nine before she was killed, living through battles and diplomacy, making friends with Ferengi and Klingons alike. You name it, she’d done it. I swear she’s my most impressive host. She even fought in the Dominion War, you know. She captained the  _ Defiant _ , our best warship, and flew straight into battle to defend the entire Alpha Quadrant. If it weren’t for her and the rest of the crew, I don’t know what would have happened.” He paused. “And then along came Ezri. She was a counselor and hadn’t even trained to be joined. And then suddenly she’s thrown straight into the thick of things, tensions still high with the Dominion, and she has to fight for her survival and that of her friends.” He shot Eeris a pained grin. “Tough times, those were. But now, I’ve seen tougher. Doesn’t matter what the universe throws at me. I can take it.”

“Dax…” Eeris began.

“Miro,” he corrected. “After nineteen lives, ‘Dax’ doesn’t differentiate me anymore.”

“Miro,” Eeris began again, “you say you’ve lived for the past twelve hundred years. So you were around at the same time as Kira Nerys?”

Miro smiled thinly. “Ah, the first Steward of Bajor. You’re asking if I knew her?”

Eeris nodded.

“Sure did,” Miro said.

“Tell me more about her,” Eeris said. “The way my people paint her image, it makes me detest her. I can’t understand how someone like you could have been her friend.”

“I wasn’t.”

“But you knew her,” Eeris said.

“Doesn’t mean I liked her. I’m almost glad she’s gone.”

Eeris shook her head in disgust. “She left her legacy of Stewards behind her.”

“Yes,” Miro said, “and that’s why I steer clear of Bajor. It’s sickening.”

“But how did she become the Steward?” Eeris asked. “Was she ever different?”

“Sure.”

“But what was she like before?” Eeris pressed. “Did she change?”

“That’s one word for it.”

“How?”

“Completely.”

Eeris heaved a frustrated sigh. “Miro…”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

Eeris decided it was time to change the subject. She’d run up against a wall. “So, do you know where I can find the metamorph I’m looking for?”

“I don’t know of any metamorphs,” Miro said.

“I’m a metamorph myself,” Eeris said.

Miro’s brows made a bid for his hairline.

“I know, I know, I’m a Bajoran, but that’s what doesn’t make any sense,” she said. “I shouldn’t have the abilities I have. That’s why I’m trying to find someone else like me, someone who can change their shape. I saw a metamorph in a vision, and—”

Miro frowned. “That’s impossible. The Prophets are gone.”

“The vedek I spoke to said it must have been sent by the Emissary,” Eeris said.

“The Emissary.” Miro’s jaw tightened. “Are you sure?”

“That’s what the vedek said,” Eeris shrugged.

Miro scowled. “So Benjamin lives.”

“Who’s Benjamin?”

“Oh, just an old friend.” Miro smiled at her. “I guess an enemy, now. But go on. I believe you were about to tell me about a vision.”

“Yes, that’s how I found out about the metamorph,” Eeris said. “I think I’m supposed to find him. He was kind of flat-faced, really severe hairstyle—”

“I know the man,” Miro said abruptly. “Or, I used to know him. He’s on the other side of the wormhole, kid, and fortunately the wormhole is closed. Has been for nine hundred years. I couldn’t take you to him even if I wanted to.”

“But couldn’t we just try?” Eeris said. “What could be the harm?”

“Not a chance,” Miro said. “He’s no one you want to know, kid.”

Eeris frowned. “But he protected me in that thunderstorm…”

“He what?”

“In my vision.”

Miro shook his head. “Maybe Benjamin’s getting careless in his old age, kid, but Odo’s not the man you think he is. He’s a Founder. He was oozing around with his people in the Great Link when the Founders killed the Prophets.”

“No,” Eeris whispered.

“I’m afraid it’s true,” Miro said.

“But obviously this Benjamin guy wants me to find Odo,” Eeris said. “Doesn’t that count for something?”

“Kid, I’m not taking my ship anywhere near the Founder homeworld,” Miro said. “We can go anywhere else you want. Whatcha say I take you by the Cardassian border?”

“I guess that’s alright,” Eeris said.

“Great!” Miro said. “Now let me just get my trinkets sold, and we can get going. Want to tag along?”

“I’ve got nowhere else to go,” Eeris said.

“Nowhere? What about family?”

“Forget about my family,” Eeris said quietly. “They don’t care about me anymore.”

Miro’s smile shrank. “Just as long as no one’s going to yell at me over subspace.”

“Don’t worry,” Eeris said, now with conviction. “I’ve left Bajor behind. I don’t belong there anymore. I guess…I guess I never did.”

“A loner, huh?” A strange look crossed his features, and then his face creased into a tender smile. “I know how that feels. I guess you’d better stick around, then.”

There was no malice in his voice. A lifetime of habit told Eeris not to trust him, that this was too good to be true, that there was no one willing to help her or give her a second glance anymore. But she wasn’t on Bajor anymore. She was free. And her instincts told her that Miro was being sincere.

She felt an undignified grin spread across her face. “Guess I’d better!”   
  



	10. Chapter 9

“What does this thing do?” Eeris asked, pointing to a machine with a darkened screen. It looked like a digital clock.

She and Miro were on board the  _ Challenger _ , having dropped off his collection of odd ends at some sort of pawning store. It had been a mix-and-match of various engine parts and other objects Eeris had never seen in her life. They’d returned to his ship with a few hundred bars of latinum. It was, according to Miro, one of his more successful endeavors, and it had left him in such a good mood that he seemed to have forgotten she’d asked about Kira Nerys or the metamorph, Odo.

Eeris still wondered about Kira Nerys and Odo. Especially Kira Nerys. Now that she knew the first Steward had once been a different woman, a woman Miro was loathe to tell her about, she was only more tempted to learn. But she was content to leave Miro alone about it for now. After all, he was her only means of passage through the galaxy. If he decided he didn’t want her on board, then she had nowhere else to go.

Miro’s attention was occupied with the vast array of instruments lined up just under the viewscreen of the cockpit. There was barely enough space for them both to fit inside, though Eeris hoped beyond hope that they could fit a third person when the time came.

“Oh, that thing blares an alarm when the fuel’s low,” Miro answered her from the pilot’s seat as he began to prelaunch inspection. “It used to do a countdown when we had a couple of hours left, but it broke down a few weeks ago and I don’t have enough latinum to get it fixed. You hear it beep, and you get in the ejection pod right away, because we won’t have time to get anywhere before the air recycling unit gives out.”

Eeirs backed slowly away from the device. “Thanks for the warning.”

Miro grinned. “My pleasure, kid. Alright, that should do it…” He did a final check and then flipped a switch. The engine roared to life behind them. “Take a seat, kid, because you’re on a roller coaster now! I call it the  _ Challenger _ Express.”

Eeris settled into the only other chair, which happened to be the copilot’s seat. “Is this alright?”

“Perfect! Wouldn’t want to deprive you of a front-window view, would we? Alright, I’m gonna get us clearance… _ Challenger _ to Deep Space Nine, am I clear to disembark?”

_ “You’re clear,  _ Challenger _. Have a safe voyage.” _

Miro laughed. “I’ll take that under advisement!  _ Challenger _ out.” He smiled at Eeris. “Alright, here we go. Releasing docking clamps…thrusters engaged…now let me just navigate us around these darn docking pylons, and…”

Eeris clutched her seat as she watched the view out the viewscreen. Miro seemed to be a good pilot so far—he was avoiding hitting the station with ease—but they still swung a little too close to the nearest pylon for comfort. And then, without warning, he shot them up and over the station and into the space beyond.

“Bajor’s down there,” Miro said offhandedly, “if you want a peek.”

“I’m good,” Eeris said, but she looked out the side window anyway. There was a speck of light in the distance, just a little brighter than the surrounding stars. “Is that it?”

“That little speck out there? Yup. We’re way too far away to see it any bigger. It used to be even farther from here, but the wormhole sent a huge shockwave this way when it closed. Blew the station a couple hundred miles closer, so Bajor looks like a little star from here now. Ironic, considering its darkness.” Miro kept his focus on the way ahead. “If you’re ready, I’ll bring us toward Cardassian space.”

Eeris took a deep breath. She took one last glance at Bajor. And she smiled.

“I’m ready,” she said.

He grinned. “Then here we go. Plotting a course for the Cardassian demilitarized zone. I’d go farther into their space—we can expect the attention of a few battle cruisers if we head that way—but it’s not just me now. I figure I better fly a little nicer than I usually would.”

“Thanks,” Eeris said.

“My pleasure,” Miro said. “You need anything—besides, of course, a trip to the Gamma Quadrant—you just let me know. I like you, kid, I don’t want you in danger.”

Eeris smiled. Watching the view out the side window, she spotted a tiny speck that looked a little incongruous against the stars beyond. “What’s that?” she asked, pointing.

Miro leaned over to check. “Looks like a ship.”

“Is it a problem?” Eeris asked.

“I don’t know yet,” Miro said. “Hold on, let me get a fix on its position. I wanna know where it’s coming from.” He pressed a few buttons and then peered at the readouts. “What the…?”

“What’s wrong?” Eeris asked.

“Looks like it’s coming from the— No, that can’t be right.” Miro grimaced and pressed the same buttons again. The computer bleeped at him and he slapped it with his palm. “Impossible! No one comes from the Gamma Quadrant!”

Eeris’s heart jumped into her throat. “It’s coming from the  _ Gamma Quadrant _ ?”

“Looks like it,” Miro said. “Well, no big deal, we’ll just give it a wide berth. It’s probably coming to the station. Come on, let me get us outta here.” As he swung the ship wide, the stars panned across the viewscreen. “That just doesn’t make sense. The last time a ship crossed the quadrant boundary was…” He stiffened. “…nine hundred years ago.”

“That’s about the same time Kira Nerys went astray,” Eeris said.

“About the same time as the Dominion War ended, too,” Miro nodded. “Kid, I don’t know what this ship wants, but I’ll be damned if I’ll let it get close to us.”

“What are you going to do about it?” Eeris asked.

“See what they’re doing?” Miro aligned the  _ Challenger _ so that the mystery ship appeared in the center of the viewscreen. He tapped the glass with his finger, leaning closer to Eeris as he drew their path. “They’re gonna swing wide around us and head for the station. All I need to do is not give ‘em trouble. In fact, I can put a few extra miles in between us for good measure.” He frowned, eyes back on his instruments. “What the…?”

“Sounds like they’re not doing what you expect them to do,” Eeris said.

“Not in the least,” Miro said. He shook his head. “They just veered right. Straight toward us.”

“What could they want with us?” Eeris asked.

“Beats me,” Miro said. “I don’t know anyone from the Gamma Quadrant. I’m not a welcoming committee, and neither are you. I don’t like this, kid. I’m steering clear.”

The ship was drawing closer. It veered toward them across the viewscreen.

“They’re following us,” Eeris said.

Miro frowned. “Fate, just when you think you’ve seen it all. If I’d thought I’d run into Gamma Quadrant trouble before we left, I would never have taken you on board.”

“Well, there’s no time for what-ifs now,” Eeris said. “I’m on board, and we’re just going to have to figure the situation out as it is.”

“That’s my specialty,” Miro grinned. “Alright, I’m gonna call ‘em. See what they want.” He pressed a button. “This is the  _ Challenger _ calling unidentified Gamma Quadrant vessel. What’s your business in the Alpha Quadrant?”

_ “This is the  _ Rintoqua _ ,” _ a gruff, guttural voice replied.  _ “I was wondering if I might ask for directions.” _

That voice. Eeris knew that voice. But where—

Miro’s expression hardened in anger, his jaw set. “You want directions, Founder, you’re going to have to ask Deep Space Nine. High time you revisited your old station, don’t you think?”

Eeris’s eyes became the size of dinner plates. She knew whose voice that was. She’d only heard it once, and that had been in the dreamlike haze of her orb vision, but there was no mistaking it.

“ _ Odo _ ?” she gasped. “Is that you?”

A pause.  _ “Who am I speaking to?” _

Miro shot her an annoyed glance, but the words flew out of Eeris’s mouth before she could stop them. “Kira Eeris, descendant of the first Steward, Kira Nerys! I’m escaping Bajor and I—”

“ _ Kira _ Eeris!” Miro yelled, slamming a fist into the dashboard. “Damn it! I should have known!”

_ “You’re Kira’s descendant?” _ Odo asked.

“Stay clear away from her, Founder,” Miro growled into the comm. “She’s none of your concern! And you have no right to be concerned about a descendant of Kira Nerys, not after what you  _ did _ !”

_ “I—I’m sorry, I don’t—” _ Odo faltered.  _ “Let me start over. Can I speak to Eeris for a moment?” _

“Fine!” Miro snapped. “I’ll do my best to keep my mouth shut! But don’t you dare come any closer, Founder, or I’ll open fire before you can say Great Link!”

Eeris held up her hands. “Miro, stop.”

“And I’ll talk to  _ you _ later,” Miro said, pointing a finger at her. “Descendant of Kira…damn it, what was I thinking, not even asking who you were?”

“Look, I don’t like her any more than you do. I hate her. I got out of there as soon as I could.”

Miro glared at her. “You don’t even know her, kid!”

“And proud of it!” Eeris said. She gestured back at the viewscreen. “Now, do you know this man?”

“You bet I know him!” Miro said. “That’s Odo you’re talking to!”

Eeris sighed. “Do you want to find out what he wants with us or not?”

“I’d rather send him straight back to that  _ Great Link _ of his!”

Eeris still didn’t have any clear idea of what a Founder was or what the Great Link was, but she figured she could find those answers soon enough. “Miro, how long is the journey here from the Gamma Quadrant, without the benefit of the wormhole?”

Odo provided the answer.  _ “About seventy years.” _

“Miro,” Eeris pleaded, “he’s spent seventy years in space, away from this ‘Great Link’ you keep talking about, on the journey here. I don’t know why he’s back, but he is. Can’t we at least listen to what he has to say?”

“Fine!” Miro swiveled his chair away from the comm system. “But I won’t give him the satisfaction of speaking to my face.”

“Can you put him on the screen?” Eeris asked.

Miro reached behind himself and flipped a switch. The man from Eeris’s vision—the one of the Bajoran hills—appeared on the screen. In life, his face was just as blank, just as frightening. There was a light in his wide, deep-set blue eyes that spoke volumes—about what, Eeris had no idea.

_ “Eeris? You…” _ Odo faltered, looked down, and then back up again.  _ “I…I’m not sure how to begin. Captain Sisko didn’t give me any instructions beyond this point.” _

“Who’s Captain Sisko?” Eeris asked.

_ “I’m…sorry,” _ Odo said.  _ “He’s…I suppose you know him as the Emissary.” _

“Also called Benjamin?” Eeris asked.

Odo leaned closer.  _ “Who called him Benjamin? Was it Dax?” _

A sharp, humorless laugh from Miro. “I’m Dax, Founder.”

Odo flinched.  _ “You’re…not the way I remember you.” _

“No, and neither are you.” Miro didn’t turn around. “Get back to talking to Eeris. I have no interest in conversation.”

Odo turned back to Eeris.  _ “So, I take it you know of the Emissary?” _

“Only from a vedek,” Eeris said.

Odo tilted his head.  _ “Not from the Bajoran populace?” _

Miro let out a sharp bark of laughter and swiveled his chair around. “Founder, if we’re going to talk—and it looks like we are, much to my dismay—we might as well start off on the right foot. You’ve missed nine hundred years of Alpha Quadrant history while you were oozing around back where you call home. Eeris doesn’t know any of it, the Bajoran High Council is really good at keeping secrets. Something you might sympathize with. Meet us at the station, and I’ll fill you in. But let’s get one thing straight, Founder. I have  _ no _ interest in talking to you, or spending time with you, and I’m starting to regret getting myself involved in this.”

_ “Understood,” _ Odo said.  _ “I’ll meet you at the station.” _

“And one more thing, Founder,” Miro said.

Odo looked up at him.

“You might have a little trouble getting cleared for docking,” Miro said. “We’re not friendly with Founders around here. And you can be sure that if you run into difficulty…” He leaned in closer to the screen. “…I  _ won’t _ be there at your side.”

_ “Alright,” _ Odo said.  _ “But I assure you, Dax, your hard feelings are unwarranted. I’m not here as a Founder.” _

“Once a Founder, always a Founder,” Miro snapped. He shook his head, his green eyes shooting daggers. “And you think you know someone.”

Odo flinched and drew a rather shaky breath.  _ “…Alright. I’ll see you at the station.  _ Rintoqua  _ out.” _

Eeris swung around to face Miro. “Now what was  _ that _ all about?”

“Nothing you need to worry about, kid,” Miro said, his attention back on the controls. “Just a nine-hundred-year-old grudge. If you wanna know what he did that was so bad, you’re gonna have to ask him.” He frowned, his eyes growing distant as his hands stiffened. “I don’t want to talk about it.”   
  



	11. Chapter 10

~3205—70 years earlier~

* * *

Seventy years was a long time to travel. A lot of time to sit in a Dominion cockpit and do nothing but get up to speed on current events in the Alpha Quadrant. A long time to rethink his choices—far too many times to count.

Most of the time, Odo passed the hours in his natural state, his ship flying on autopilot. The space between his home planet and Bajor was largely unexplored, having never been traversed since the destruction of the wormhole, and was inhabited by various humanoid and non-humanoid life forms. Odo stopped at a few planets, intending to do a little observation to report back to his friends on DS9, only to remember that he  _ had _ no friends anymore. It was a sobering thought.

He never stayed long on those planets. Just long enough to remind himself that there was a galaxy outside his little ship. Never long enough to start thinking of any of those places as home.

Odo’s ship, the  _ Rintoqua _ , was a cramped space. There was nothing but a cockpit and a place for a humanoid to sleep. Out of habit—out of the need to practice for his upcoming interactions with Solids, Odo insisted to himself—he “slept” back there as if he really did have two arms and two legs, instead of just regenerating in a pool under the pilot’s seat. It wasn’t hard to pretend. It didn’t feel as if he had been gone for almost a thousand years, thanks to the way the Link seemed to speed up time, and most of his personality had been formed through his interactions with humanoids. That, his people couldn’t take away from him, no matter how badly they desired him to become one with their collective.

There was nothing really to do in those seventy years of travel. Just stop at one uncharted planet after another, turn into some sort of bird, and take the aerial tour Jadzia Dax or Dr. Bashir would have wanted to take in a runabout. That, and play mind games with the  _ Rintoqua’s _ computer. Odo had it generate criminal mysteries and other programs for him to solve. By the time he reached the Alpha Quadrant, he was getting bored of the same trials of wit that had once made up his career. For him, law enforcement wasn’t a hobby. It was a paid version of one of his few goals in life—justice. And justice didn’t matter when it was only a Dominion computer generating simulations to test his wits. Odo had never needed to worry about keeping his wits sharpened. He wasn’t a humanoid, and his mind didn’t dull with age.

Odo dropped out of warp within a few thousand miles of Bajor and his old station. His hands stilled over the controls, a sensation almost akin to dread settling in his matrix where his gut should have been. He was too far away to make out the station’s grasping pylons, but he hadn’t been gone long enough to forget what they looked like. Maybe that would never happen. He remembered when he’d first seen that Cardassian monstrosity, suspended endlessly in space just like the relentless Cardassian Occupation. Hundreds of tiny lights had glinted from its dark surfaces like devil’s eyes. Those pointed spires had reached out to grab his transport, and he’d had the dizzying sense of being dragged into something. Of escaping Bajor at last, but of being sucked into something else, something just as terrible. Something just as dangerous.

He’d been right.

There had been rewards. Plenty of them. He had discovered justice. He had met Kira Nerys. Later, he had retained his position when the Federation had taken over, and he had formed some of the most rewarding friendships of his life. But for those first four years, the station—then known as Terok Nor—had been one of the darkest places he’d ever set foot upon, darker even than the relative shelter of the lab. Odo had spent the better part of his life as the shape shifter, the impartial one, the one who couldn’t be trusted, the one who didn’t belong. Thirty-some years on Bajor. Then four years serving right under Gul Dukat’s nose.

It wasn’t a time he would ever forget.

As the  _ Rintoqua _ drifted slowly closer, Odo could make out the station’s changes from a distance. The most obvious difference was that it was dark. Odo didn’t think he saw a single light glinting from within its black shell, not even the central hub that had once been the promenade. Odo’s form clenched with dread. He imagined ore processing units and dark ghettos and dust clouding the air, only this time—this time—no tiny Bajoran lamps to dispel the gloom, like little glowing lanterns of hope in the darkness.

Odo shook his head and the image left his mind.

_ Really, Odo? _ he chided himself.  _ Getting spooked over a couple of nine-hundred-year-old ghosts? _

No, more likely the station had fallen into disrepair. There would be no more ore processing chambers, no more ghettos, no more central power core. The station was dead. There was no machinery left in operation.

Strangely, the thought didn’t comfort him.

Some klicks away, the  _ Rintoqua’s _ sensors spotted a tiny two-man vessel heading toward them from the station. Its birdlike shape reminded Odo of a Klingon bird of prey, but the registry was all wrong. And Odo wouldn’t call himself a tactical expert, but this thing didn’t look fit for a sustained battle. It was sleek and black, its wings—nacelles, Odo corrected himself—arching proudly over a streamlined body. It looked like it would sooner ram itself through his ship than any weaponry it had would tear him apart. But then again, Alpha Quadrant and Dominion technology had evolved separately for another nine hundred years. It was possible this ship was tougher than it looked to Odo.

Odo was about to fly past it when it suddenly swung away from him, as if to put some distance between them. Understandable, since the  _ Rintoqua _ was a Dominion ship. But Odo had the terrible fear that after all the work he’d done to secure peace, after all the time he’d lost with Nerys, this little ship was going to undo it all by suggesting to the nearest authority that the Dominion was about to come through to attack. No. The risk was too great. Odo had to talk to them.

The other ship swung out of comm range, but Odo quickly adjusted his course to intercept. For less than a minute, they danced like that, the other ship stalking around him like a dark predator, and Odo just doing what he could to keep it in his sights. Then the other ship opened a channel.

_ “This is the  _ Challenger _ calling unidentified Gamma Quadrant vessel. What’s your business in the Alpha Quadrant?” _

And thus began the greatest surprise of Odo’s day. Dax, true to Sisko’s word, was alive and well and in a man’s body. And hated Odo with a passion.

The difference was disconcerting. Miro Dax was, for one, not a woman anymore. It shouldn’t have mattered—Dax was a Trill and had already been a man several times—but it still threw Odo’s mind for a loop. It didn’t fit with his previous memories of Dax as a friend and colleague. But that difference quickly lost importance. The most important difference, the one that set Odo’s perception askew, was the anger in Dax’s eyes.

He’d never seen that before. Not with Jadzia, and certainly not with Ezri. He’d seen Jadzia with righteous indignation, and sometimes even anger, but nothing like this. Miro Dax’s anger approached hatred. Hatred that was directed at  _ him _ .

It was obvious Miro was angry about something to do with Nerys, if his reaction to his passenger being her descendant was any indication. What exactly that was, Odo couldn’t say without more information. But he had a hunch that all of this had something to do with Sisko’s prophetic words.

_ “Odo, this is a problem you’ll have to solve without my help.” _

It did all add up, in a strange and disconnected sort of way. He’d found an old crewmate and he’d found that one-armed Bajoran girl, the one Sisko had shown him in his dream. And that brought him to the second big surprise of the day: how attached to her he already was. From the moment he had seen her in the flesh, Odo felt a spark go off in his brain (or what passed for one), like some great epiphany waiting to come. His heart—or, that was, the liquid space inside his chest where his heart should have been—had reached out to her like a knight to a citizen in need, or like a parent to his child. And that, of course, didn’t make any sense. Eeris was the descendant of Nerys and her Bajoran husband, not him. He wasn’t even the same species as she was. But despite the illogic of it, the attachment felt real. And Odo knew he would protect her with his life.

Was this some manipulation of Sisko’s, from his seat in the sky? Well, if the captain wanted Odo’s attention, then he had it.

One thing Odo hadn’t been able to glean from the  _ Rintoqua’s _ database was much about Bajoran history. It seemed to have dropped off to the sidelines. It figured that the one thing Odo really wanted to know about the Alpha Quadrant was nowhere on record. And so Eeris’s news—or, that was, what she’d begun to say before Miro had interrupted them with a voice dripping in venom—had constituted the third surprise of the day. The Bajoran populace apparently no longer spoke of or looked to the Emissary.

Odo hadn’t thought that was a change that would—could—ever happen. He expected himself to feel relieved and satisfied that the Bajorans had finally dropped their superstitious and saw their Emissary for what he really was—a man. A Starfleet officer, one of the finest in the quadrant. But instead, dread once again stirred Odo’s matrix. Bajoran society had broken somehow and had left its essence behind.

What had happened to Kira? And why was Miro so angry?

The clues all lay hidden somewhere, Odo just had to find them. Hearing Miro’s take on the galaxy’s downfall would be a good place to start. Even if he had to set foot on the station again to do it.

Odo set a course for the nearby station, an anxious stiffness settling into his shoulders and back and spreading down his arms, into his fingers. He had a feeling he wasn’t going to like whatever he was about to find.

But whatever he found, it was an investigation. And he, Odo, was an investigator.

He would do what it took. He always had.   
  


**Author's Note:**

> All publicly recognizable characters, governments, etc. belong to Paramount and Viacom. Original characters' names were generated by [Fantasy Name Generators](http://fantasynamegenerators.com). The Bajoran _vermokk_ is the creation of [Carolyn R. Fulton](http://archiveofourown.org/users/ds9kirys). All plots and original characters' personalities are my own.


End file.
